


Held

by menin_aeide



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Captured, Dark, Dom/sub, Dominant Kylo Ren, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Mindfuck, Possessive Kylo Ren, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, but he sort of is, in a (very) twisted way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-03-20 06:25:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 53,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13711767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menin_aeide/pseuds/menin_aeide
Summary: He wants the information inside this girl’s head, and he wants the girl as his own weapon. She’s valuable to him intact. Which means that this time, for once, a more sophisticated approach is called for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first Star Wars fanfic - erm, quite dark, I think. It assumes that, after the events in TFA, Rey was recaptured, and the Force link, though it exists, was not explored as in TLJ.

He watches her silently from behind the double barrier of the two-way mirror and his own metal mask as she spins and feints and dodges the training droid, and the hardness, the sharpness of his desire is almost painful.

_You know I can take whatever I want._

True enough. Despite the sudden, spectacular awakening of the Force in her, he has been intensively trained in its ways since childhood, and could easily crush her in physical or mental combat at any time – she was only able to best him on Starkiller because his feelings were in such turmoil after killing his father ( _Solo_ , he corrects himself harshly) and he lost control completely to his rage and, yes, guilt. _Messy_. He grips hard the hilt of his lightsaber, which he is holding in both hands as he watches her progress, and the scar bisecting his face itches at the memory. It won’t happen again.

He wants – no, _needs_ – to break her. He hasn’t felt the urge to plunder, to take over, to control so badly in years. He remembers his stunned frustration and fury when she first resisted him, when she successfully blocked his way into her mind, into her memories – and, worse and more alarmingly, the utter shock when she pushed back and _looked into his_.

He could force his way in, of course. There is very little that a master of the Force with his level of skill and few scruples cannot extract from anyone, Force user or not. He has plenty of means at his disposal which he is happy to use and which, combined with his mental powers, have made him a highly effective, and ruthless, interrogator. In extreme cases, however, this meant that he had to take such a brutal approach that the victim was left little more than a shell. And Rey, he knows, is an extreme case – someone who will actually suffer any torture or even die rather than betray her friends, and a Force sensitive to boot. He could enter her mind with violence, wreaking havoc as he went in, but there would be a price to pay. Sequels. And, to his own surprise at first, he has found himself unwilling to pay it. He wants to _own_ her, not destroy her. This time, it seems, there is no satisfaction in conquering the ruins of a vanquished mind.

He leans into his hunger, allowing its raw edge to bite. On the other side of the mirror, the girl is tripped by the droid and falls to the floor with a groan and a curse, then quickly picks herself up again with a furious look, sweat glistening visibly on her face and neck, across the deep vee of the desert robe which she persists in wearing, and something stirs in him. There is the physicality of it too, of course – he is sufficiently self-aware, now, to realise this. Not that it bothers him much. He knows that libido, like anger, like fear, can be harnessed and used to become more powerful, more effective. It’s all a matter of what you do with it.

He wants the information inside this girl’s head, and he wants the girl as his own weapon. She’s valuable to him intact. Which means that this time, for once, a more sophisticated approach is called for.

 

***

 

As Rey walks out of the training chamber, still panting heavily from the exertion, she finds herself suddenly facing his tall, dark bulk blocking her way to the fresher.

“Not yet,” comes the metallic, expressionless voice from behind the mask. “Meditation, first.”

She nods, saying nothing, and follows him down the corridor. It’s been her tactic here since she was captured again – keep her head down, say as little as possible, comply, and _survive_. Ren is keeping her alive, and insisting that she train every day, hard – no doubt he wants to make her his apprentice, expecting that she will eventually turn to the Dark side. That she will join him. The thought disgusts her, but she is careful to keep her mouth shut and her thoughts as still as possible – she knows he can read her, sometimes, but she’s not certain when, or what, or to what extent, so she tries to think and feel as little as possible, knowing that he will use whatever he is able to overhear against her.

Also, she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fight him and lose.

So she’s adopted a permanent assumed meekness, the path of least resistance – ironically enough for a Resistance fighter – as if she were really willing to comply, to submit. Eventually, she hopes, they – _he_ – will become accustomed to it and lower his guard. And then she will make a run for it. It’s all she lives for now, as she bows her head and crouches, the wait. It’s all that’s keeping her sane.

He strides down a maze of corridors, twisting and turning several long steps ahead of her, then taps a code to open a restricted-area door, and waits next to it for her to go in first. She enters a warm darkness, mildly fragant with what smells like some sort of spice. Her eyes adapt to the gloom as he walks in behind her and the door slides shut with a sigh. There is a single point of light, further ahead. Suddenly she feels his hand – so heavy and strong – on her shoulder.

He guides her across what seems to be a medium-sized empty room, towards the point of light, which turns out to be a lamp set on a table at about the height of her waist. In the dark, she has become hypersensitive to his physical presence, to his body, which is even more powerful and threatening here, and seems to her almost to be pulsing, throbbing with heat behind her. Suddenly, she becomes too aware of her own heat, her sweat, her smell. She wishes she had been allowed to shower.

There is low reclining seat in front of the table, and a pot and cup in front of the lamp. “Sit”, he says, then removes his helmet and places it on the table. And leans forward, proceeding to pour some liquid into the cup. She blinks in perplexity – _Kylo Ren is serving me tea?_ – as she lowers herself onto the soft, long seat, almost like a divan, which is hugely comfortable and seems to mould itself to her tired body, so that she almost sighs out in relief.

Kylo Ren, the Master of the Knights of Ren, the Jedi Killer, indeed appears to be serving her tea, which would be funny it it weren’t so worrying. He hands her the steaming cup. “Drink.”

This has been all their conversation for weeks – monosyllables, mainly. But now there is something different, an edge to it, which wasn’t there before. Something’s going on. She takes the cup warily, willing herself to remain calm and alert. Whatever is going to happen now, she needs to be ready.

 “Drink,” he repeats. “It’s not that hot.” She cautiously takes the cup to her lips, and indeed the liquid is warm but not scalding. Spicy, mildly sweet. Ren looms above her, watching her intently. She hasn’t seen his face for quite some time – he usually prefers to wear his helmet, to look and feel less human, she assumes – but she refuses to look up now and return his gaze. Rather, she tries to scope out the room, find potential advantages, potential weapons, but it appears to be practically empty. She notices there is no other seat.

She drinks up the liquid, feeling its warmth inside as it slides down her throat and stomach. Then she holds out the empty cup, still not looking at him, saying nothing. If he’s expecting her to break the silence, he can wait for a very long time. She’s a desert child: silence is her milieu.

He takes the cup and gently sets it on the table. Then he extracts something from his tunic and places it slightly behind the lamp. A metronome. She had never seen one before, but now is familiar with it – Ren likes using it for training purposes, its unremitting rhythm setting the pace for the fight. He sets it in motion, its metal rod catching the light and glinting as it starts to swing to and fro.

“I know you still want to kill me.”

She says nothing. She can still feel the residual warmth of the tea in her body, which is not helping her tiredness at all. She needs to be aware and ready, but the seat is so low and long that she’s almost reclining, leaning against its curved back. She tries to sit up a bit taller, pushing herself up on her elbows. But they won’t prop her up.

She looks up at him, now, her pent up hatred suddenly rushing out with her fear, like a hot surge. _He’s_ _drugged me_.

“Yes.” He’s staring at her, hard. “I know you’ve been hiding all this time, scavenger. Hiding from _me_. Did you really think you could fool me?”

She won’t say anything – he wants her to speak, to fight, so he can toy with her, like a cat with a mouse, but she won’t play along. She realises she’s becoming helpless – her body increasingly sluggish and relaxed, her perception dulled. She knows what’s coming, no surprises there: as she suspected, it was only a matter of time. Let him do whatever he likes with her body, she thinks, spitefully. _Her_ , however, he won’t have. Ever.

_Read my mind now, motherfucker._

He frowns at the curse. “Oh, you’re more obvious than you think, scavenger. Heroic and idealistic and self-sacrificing, like the Resistance. So predictable. I know you’d be happy to suffer and die at my hands for the cause. Or so you believe. At any rate, bad luck. I’m not giving you that.” Suddenly he bends forward and hisses into her ear: “You’re never going to be free from me.”

She gasps at his sudden proximity, and he closes his hand around her wrist. “Your pulse is slowing down now. I’m not going to destroy you, Rey. I want you whole. I’m going to _use_ you. I’m going to use you up, entirely. And you’re going to let me.”

She tries to say something, insult him, anything, but the words won’t come. Her mind is thick with fog, her body limp, unresponsive, like something that has nothing to do with her. A puppet.

“ _My_ puppet,” he corrects her, a dark, possessive growl. He releases her wrist and stands back. Starts to pace slowly around the room, moving in and out of the darker areas where she can’t see him, behind her back. “Just lie back and sink into it. Allow it.” The ticking of the metronome now seems to echo into her bones, in synch – she now realises – with the beating of her heart. Or rather bringing her heart into synch, inexorably slowing her mind down. His voice weaves in and out of the rhythm, the only thread running through this warmth, through the darkness that now envelops her.

“That’s it. Close your eyes, Rey. Listen to my voice. Relax. Surrender.”

As he expected, the combination of her exhaustion, the drug in the tea, and this mild form of hypnosis has lowered her resistance, and he is now able to probe her mind quite easily. She stirs as she feels his presence in her thoughts, but can do nothing now that she has become so soft. Open. Helpless. Vulnerable. _Pliable._ Exactly how he wants her.

He could just break in and find the information he needs, but he wants to savour this. He slides smoothly into her memories, the most recent ones flitting first towards him – he smiles slightly as he witnesses her desperate efforts to conceal, to pretend, her desperate urge to survive and live to fight another day, whatever it takes. He can respect that, admire it even. He feels the fierce anger that she’s tried so hard to hide from him, the terror which she’s tried to hide from herself, her pride, her humiliation – ah, so delicious, this –, her loyalty, her yearning for a family, for being loved. Her terrible loneliness.

“You’re going to be exactly what I want you to be, Rey,” he says. She groans as a part of her protests distantly, helplessly, in some recess of her mind, and then gives up. He has to use all of his restraint to control his hardon.

Quickly enough, he finds the information he’s been looking for – _finally_ – then idly rifles some more through her mind. And suddenly he is looking at himself though her eyes, back in that first interrogation, the first time she saw his face. The creature in a mask. It’s odd, looking at himself from inside this girl’s head. He feels the cold fear in her belly, her forced bravery. Her shock as he pulled his helmet off. Her –  

Arousal?

Unmistakable. So strong, she’d creamed her thighs as she lay there in restraints in a torture chamber. And yet it remained so very clearly below the level of her awareness.

He’s not surprised that on some level she would be attracted to him  – a lonely virgin, a nobody from nowhere, suddenly running into an older, powerful stranger who wields complete control over her. It’s happened before. A girl gagging to be fucked, her sexual inexperience mixed with her terror, her awe at his power, and her survival instinct. A mix of lust and self-preservation. It was only to be expected, the instinct to yield, to offer her body, if only to save herself. But this?

It isn’t just that she has ambivalent feelings towards her captor. There is more. There is… an urge, so strong, it’s like a furnace blasting against his probing mind, and for the first time in his life he feels he is witnessing something that approaches his own savage desires.

Humiliation. He goes back to that, sifting frantically through her memories. Back to the little girl, abandoned by her drunkard parents, sold to that disgusting creature, who, they must have known, would…

A virgin, but only just. He feels hands on her, grubby, lewd, filthy hands all over her body, inside her, their laughter, their mocking voices jeering at her. How she allowed it, sought it out, hungry and desperate for food, for coins, for contact. For punishment. For what she deserved. How she would touch herself at night, back in the darkness of her AT-AT, reliving those hands, that filth. Like a bitch in heat. Begging, debasing herself, cumming so hard at the thought.

He gasps for breath as he pulls out, his heart thumping fiercely as he stares down at her, incredulous.

 _She doesn’t know,_ he realises, astounded, and cautiously probes again her now-stilled conscious mind. She is not fully aware of the effect he has on her. She does know about her… tendencies, of course, but loathes and fears them so much that she banishes them from her thoughts, and they only surface when she’s at her weakest, half asleep. When her inhibitions are lowered and she touches herself, alone, in the dark. Which, apparently, she does almost every night.  Which also means…

Now that he knows, he can smell it, the sharp tang beneath the spice in the air. Yes. She’s sopping wet now.

He approaches the seat, straddles it, and gently moves Rey forward so that he can position himself behind her. He holds her in his arms, feeling her weak struggle, her rapid, shallow breathing, her eyes darting from side to side behind their lids. Softly he moves his right hand down her side, under her clothes, and reaches the burning heat between her thighs. She moans, and he instantly goes rock hard.

“Open your eyes, Rey.” She does, her eyelids heavy, and he tightens his grip, both restraining and protective. “Watch the light. Listen”. He slips a finger between her folds and slides it smoothly backwards and forwards, lubricated by her wetness, following the pace of the metronome. He enters her mind again, a twofold fucking.

He sees her fantasies. Him in her fantasies. A torturer and a rescuer. How she wants him – _needs_ him – to hurt her. To use her. Take her down to the bottom, to the depths of her degradation, to turn her into something that is no longer quite human, an animal, nothing, into _filth_ – and then bring her back up to the surface again so that she isn’t lost forever to the abyss, back to life and to herself.

How she needs to belong. The abandoned little girl, so alone. How she feared, so many times, that she would die in the desert and nobody would ever know, nobody would care, her bleached bones picked by the wind for all eternity under the indifferent stars. The relief of friendship, finding a family, Finn, Poe, Maz, Chewie, Solo – and yet, and yet, even though she was truly willing to die for them, that was not enough, would never be enough. How she yearns for complete surrender, yet fights it so fiercely.

She is panting now under his relentless double fingering of her body and her mind, hard, her eyes glazed, transfixed by the swinging glint. His erection is so strong that it’s pressing against her back like a ramrod.

“Rey. I’m going to allow you to cum very soon now. When you wake up, you won’t remember this. You won’t need to remember. But when I say ‘Meditation time, Rey’, you’ll come back here – so soft, so helpless, so aroused in this warm darkness, in my arms. Your mind so open to me. So I can enter you deeply again. Do you understand?”

She nods urgently. She’s pressing her thighs hard now, keening, her hands gripping his forearm, her head thrown back, completely surrendered to his grip. He’s never seen anything so arresting in his life.

“Good girl. Cum.”

And, as if he had also given himself permission, he collapses against her shoulder and spurts hotly into the hollow of her back as she writhes against him, both wildly, blindly crying out their release in the dark.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments and encouragement!

She wakes up in the dark, still. An unknown dark – another narrow bed like the one in her cell, but this one in an odd position, in a right rather than a left corner. She gropes at the wall in a slight panic, trying to find a switch, and when she manages to turn the light on, she finds herself in a tiny, bare room, little more than a closet. She is wearing an oversize t-shirt and smells clean. Which means that someone has undressed, washed her, and put this on her.

There is a door, which unexpectedly wooshes open as she approaches it, barefoot, and she walks out into a large, warmly lit room. On the left, a long, glittering panorama of stars against the blackness of space through vast, curved windows. At the back of the room, ahead of her, a long wall of what she recognises, from vids, as actual books, real paper made from real dead trees, which must be worth an obscene amount of money (she once fed for three months on the proceeds from the printed technical specifications of an obsolete piece of machinery, found in the wreck of a commercial ship, on Jakku). Several long sofas in front of the bookshelves. And on one of them, reading, is Kylo Ren.

He’s wearing a dark grey marl tunic and slacks, and is also barefoot, one foot on the floor, the other stretched out on the cushions, his free hand resting on the back of the sofa as he lounges, fully concentrating on what he is reading. He looks remarkably relaxed. The problem with space travel is that it’s so easy to lose the notion of time, with no suns to go by, but it feels like it’s the end of the day. She cannot help being surprised by the fact that Kylo Ren actually winds down, like an actual human being, in what are obviously his private quarters.

He looks up from his book as the door closes behind her. “You’re awake.”

Obviously. “What happened?”

“You fainted after the training session. The droids tell me you haven’t been eating enough.”

Which is true. But then eating properly is hard when your stomach is constantly clenched in worry and fear. He puts his book down. “Come. I asked the droids to bring something for when you woke up.”

She approaches the sofa area gingerly, seeing that a large platter of what looks like finger food has been laid out on a low table, together with an empty plate, a napkin, an empty glass, and a large bottle of water. He nods for her to sit next to it on the sofa across from him, which she does. “Go ahead. I don’t want you to develop an ulcer.”

She hadn’t realised how hungry she was until she bites into something delicious, some sort of buttery pastry with a dense yet delicately spiced filling. It’s bliss. “They don’t serve this in the canteen,” she blurts out, unthinking.

He chuckles. “No, I don’t think they do.” He looks at her as she eats, in the intent way that she suspects he tries to conceal with his helmet, but she is too hungry to care. The scavenger’s motto: food first, worry later.

 

***

 

He gazes at her as she perches at the edge of the sofa, wary like a wild animal ready to flee any second. And feels something of the tamer’s satisfaction as she starts to eat, little by little at first, then with a certain shamelessness that is clearly partly aimed at him, which amuses him.

Once she has polished off the platter, she places her hands in her lap and sits in silence, trying to look unassuming. She won’t say anything, he knows. The post-hypnotic amnesia – aided by a little reinforcement using the Force – seems to have worked pretty well. For her, it’s as if they had left things off at the end of her training session.

“I wanted to discuss your training with you.” No visible reaction, as expected. He goes on. “As you no doubt have deduced, I have started training you in the ways of the Force. As I told you before,” and here he hesitates for a second, remembering the circumstances, “you need a teacher. I will teach you.”

Still nothing.

“I am not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. I will use you for my own purposes. But I realise that I cannot force you beyond a certain point. You must embrace it.”

This does get a reaction. “You want me to…?”

“I want you to willingly and actively engage in your training, yes. I know that you have been going along with things while you wait for an opportunity to escape. It’s not enough. And it’s not going to happen. So you might as well accept it, and become what you can – and must – become. Under my tutelage.”

Her face is now, despite all her efforts, decidedly mutinous.

“Oh, I know perfectly well that you are willing to martyr yourself, you will never surrender, you will never join the Dark side, and so on and so forth. Your life is of little worth to you, which is actually not that surprising, considering.” Ah, that stung. _Good_. “But I think you do value the lives of your… friends.” She goes satisfyingly white-faced. “If you give me your word that you will submit to my training wholeheartedly and stop thinking about ways to escape – which by the way would be completely futile –, I’ll give you my word that I will spare your friends when we capture them.”

“ _If_ you capture them,” she mutters.                      

“When, not if. It’s just a matter of time. As you well know.”

She swallows hard, trying not to betray the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The fact is, he’s right, even though it’s a truth that she has avoided facing for a long time. The war is going badly. Really badly. The Resistance’s situation is desperate, with no planets willing to harbour them, no support, no funds, the senior command more and more entangled in petty internal politics, and everyone increasingly worn out and hopeless after decades of unfruitful struggle. That’s why General Organa has kept up that ridiculous charade of Luke Skywalker as the saviour to come for so long, as a last-ditch resort to bring together the Resistance into some semblance of unity (of course, under _her_ command) through a shared delusion. And the First Order only becoming more and more powerful, more all-present, more inexorable with every day that passes. It _is_ just a matter of time.

She looks up at him with a mixture of apprehension and tamped-down despair which delights him. She is forcing herself to say this while trying to maintain as much dignity as possible. _That won’t last long_.

“Your word?” Her voice almost breaking into that of a frightened, hopeful child.

“My word. I don’t lie. You know that.”

And it’s true, she knows. She’s not sure how, but she knows. He may be a monster, but he’s not a liar.

She cannot bring herself do to anything more than nod in acceptance. Not enough.

“Say it.”

She takes a deep breath. “I… give you my word. I will not try to escape.”

“And you will submit to me. As your Master.”

She looks up at him, wide-eyed at the ambiguity of the term. _Ah, yes._

“And I will submit to you. As my Master.” All the air leaves her lungs as though she has been punched. She had not realised she was shaking.

He smiles, a predator. “And I give you my word that I will spare your friends’ lives when I hunt them down. Now stand up and take that off.”

She freezes like a deer suddenly caught before the hunter’s torch. “What?”

“Stand up. And Take. That. Off.”

She gets up, trembling, and pulls off the t-shirt, which gets stuck around her head and blinds her for a terrifying instant. And she is left standing naked before him.

He sweeps his eyes over her body, expressionless, for endless seconds. Is he appraising her, desiring her, finding her subpar? He might as well be wearing his mask now for all he shows.

“Kneel.”

She obeys mutely, sinking into the spot he indicates on the carpet, about one metre in front of him where he sits.

“Thighs wide open. Wider. Hands on your thighs. Palms up. Back straight. Gaze down.” The latter unnecessary – she cannot bring herself to look at him, like this.

She kneels there in front of him, completely open and exposed. She doesn’t realise it, but she’s panting, her chest rising and falling visibly as she labours for breath. Her waves rising hotly, her pungency like a slap on his face. He would smell her cunt from across the room.

Tears are streaming silently down her face. She’s so humiliated, she wishes he had not offered her her friends’ lives and she could have chosen death, an end to this. She’s so aroused it hurts.

He slowly stretches out a long leg and rests his bare foot against the inside of her thigh.

“Yes. I think this is your natural position.” His voice distant, as if coming through water. The patterns on the carpet, black curlicues against the cream and red background, swim in her vision, blurry with her tears.

And then his foot slides up, cool against her burning skin, upwards and upwards, and as his toe eases its way in she finds herself clenching involuntarily against his arch, gripping it in her thighs. Her cunt already wet, throbbing, betraying her, her face hot with shame. _I’m humping his foot._ She really, really wants to be swallowed up. To disappear.

He hardly needs to move his foot – just the lightest motion is enough for her body to react immediately, hungrily. Her entire body seems to be on fire, her skin burning in the warm air, her innards melting.

“Look at me.”

She obeys automatically, overwhelmed. And looks up into his dark eyes burning into hers. Feeding on her shame. Her stomach, her cunt clench, hard, and she knows that he’s felt it. She can’t look away, pierced by his eyes.

He holds her in his gaze for an eternity. Then he only has to say one word.

Her orgasm is so intense that it fells her, collapsing in a convulsing heap at his feet. The last thing she sees is his shadow swooping down on her like a huge bird of prey. Then darkness as his wings close swiftly, mercifully, over her mind.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you to everyone who has left messages and kudos. I really, really appreciate it.

“You’re out of your fucking mind, Ren!”

Of course he knew that Hux would react this way, unimaginative little shit that he is, but still Ren has to contain himself so as not to Force-slam him into the wall. Not that he hasn’t in the past – but the Supreme Leader, whose personal motto seems to be ‘Divide and conquer’ and is always revoltingly pleased to witness the rivalry between his two underlings, has ordered him, in no uncertain terms, to rein it in. Hux is a narrow-minded pain in the neck, true, but he is an excellent tactician and commands a level of loyalty from the troops that Ren, despite being much more feared for his mysterious abilities and bursts of rage, can never hope to achieve. Ren is extraordinary, but his power needs to be balanced by Hux’s steadiness, however short-sighted he may often be, and however much Ren wants to put the entitled little prick in his place once and for all.

_Just a matter of time._

So he leans back against the control console and waits for Hux to be done going ballistic, which takes quite a while. It’s a quiet time, and they are almost alone on the bridge of the ship, with just a few technicians on the floor below them, who, out of previous and painful experience, will very deliberately ignore anything that goes on between their commanders.

“You wanted to capture the girl to get the map. We have the map. So what the fuck do you want to keep the girl alive for? A Resistance fighter AND A FUCKING FORCE USER! ON BOARD MY SHIP!!! Do you have any idea of the security risks that will pose?”

“I have already said this, General. Repeatedly. There will be no risks. The girl is completely under my control.”

“Completely under your control! Ha! Just as you control yourself? Do you think I’m willing to endanger my entire crew just because you want to keep your own bit of rough conveniently nearby? Can’t you just make do with prostitutes when we go planetside, even if you have to pay them extra?”

Ren’s voice goes dangerously low: “I would advise you to be very careful how you refer to me or my apprentice, General”.

“Your apprentice? So that’s what you call your little fuckt...?” His last syllable strangled mid-flow as Ren lifts a single finger. Not the choke-hold he would prefer, but at least it shuts Hux up. When he releases him, Hux has gone as red as a beet with anger and humiliation. Which doesn’t bode well: Hux can huff and puff for weeks when he feels belittled, making everyone’s lives – including Ren’s – unbearable. Not to mention that he’ll go complaining to the Supreme Leader, whose reactions can sometimes be… unpredictable.

Before he has the chance to go into a full-blown rage, Ren appeases him: “But you do have a point. You’re concerned for the safety of your crew, which is only reasonable. Will you be happier if can prove to you, to your full satisfaction, that the girl no longer poses any risks and is completely under my control?”

This takes the wind out of Hux’s sails, but only for a few seconds. Then the sly, foxy smile that makes Ren want to hit him returns: “Of course, Commander. But you do realise that _to my full satisfaction_ is quite a tall order?”

Beneath the helmet, Ren closes his eyes and grinds his teeth. “I am aware of your exacting standards, General. I have to live with them every day.” _You petty, anally retentive, bean-counting git_.

“Good,” smirks Hux, pleased at what he believes to be his successful one-upmanship. “I look forward to this… little demonstration of yours, then. Do let me know when you’re ready.”

“Certainly. Are you free this evening?” 

***  
 

She is sitting on her narrow bed, gathering her thoughts, in one of the rare moments in which she is allowed to be alone other than at night, and then she is always so exhausted that she hardly has any time to herself before her head hits the pillow and she plunges into what always feels like an all-too short sleep. She has been moved to this room in Ren’s quarters permanently – apparently, not a closet but the valet’s room, from the time when the senior military required assistance to get dressed in the morning. A servant’s room. Rather appropriate.

Other than that, nothing seems to have changed after… what happened. Her routine has been the same as it was before – wake up early, breakfast, train in the morning, lunch, train in the afternoon, dinner, train in the evening, shower, bed. She has hardly seen him, even. Not that she feels relieved – this is most likely only temporary, and she has reasons to be apprehensive about what lies ahead for her.

What really disturbs her, though, is that she feels almost – _disappointed_.

The implications are too frightening to bear thinking of. So she welcomes the hiss of the door outside, and his droid’s now familiar tripping steps.

She walks out, and sees that it’s carrying a huge white bathrobe and slippers.  
 

***

  
The droid makes her remove all her clothes, helps her into the bathrobe, and leads her into a lift and up to one of the highest decks of the ship. Then down a corridor, and into a bathroom – not the type of communal showers she normally uses, but more like a sauna, filled with steam, with benches running along the walls, massage tables, and a tub as large as a small pool in the centre. Two other droids are waiting for her there.

She has never felt so squeaky clean in her life. She is bathed, brushed, and scrubbed to within an inch of her life, her skin exfoliated with pumice, her hair shampooed and rinsed and massaged several times, her nails and toenails trimmed, her eyebrows plucked, her earwax removed, by the ruthlessly efficient cleaning droids. They also shave off her pubic hair – she is so surprised, and they are so clinical about it, that it doesn't occur to her to protest. At one point, their painstaking sponging extends to the crack of her buttocks, and she fears she will lose it – _no no no no no not there_ – but apparently they are content with a thorough rub. Then they bring in some sort of giant dryer – a metal framework underneath which she is made to stand, as if in a wind tunnel – and spray her with what smells like an unusually pleasant-scented disinfectant.

They wrap her again in the bathrobe and place the slippers on her feet, careful not to let her immaculate skin touch the floor or anything else, then sit her in front of a mirror and proceed to do her hair and makeup – nothing complicated, a neat bun at the top of her head, minimal eye shadow and blush.

“You are ready,” announces Ren’s droid. _Ready for what?_ she wants to ask, half dreading it (she doesn’t want to think about the other half). But before she has time to say anything, the droid leads her out of the bathroom, down a corridor, and into a different room. Then it removes her bathrobe, and Rey finds herself standing naked in front of the broad, gleaming, endless table of the high command’s conference room.  
 

***  


Hux makes him wait, of course. When he appears at the end of the corridor, Ren composes his expression into stillness, which will no doubt annoy him. In any case, he’s left his helmet in his quarters.

“So,” says Hux cheerily, visibly looking forward to another opportunity to thwart Ren’s designs tonight. “About this proof of yours. How do you intend to reassure me that we will all be safe with that wretched Jedi wannabe on my ship?”

“Well,” answers Ren, allowing the General to walk into the conference room first, “I thought we could discuss it over dinner.”

Hux has hardly taken two steps into the room when he is shocked to a halt. There, on the middle of the dark, polished lacquer table, lies the girl, perfectly still, covered only by multiple little coloured heaps of food.

For once in his life, words fail Hux. He stands staring, mouth agape in disbelief.

“Dinner,” says Ren, simply.

He approaches the long table while Hux recovers, and moves up next to Rey’s head. She looks beautiful, her pale body against the dark table a work of art, a canvas for desire, her lovely mounds and hollows and curves both serving up delights and the delights being served. She resolutely stares up at the ceiling as he looms over her. He can sense her accelerated pulse, her rapid, shallow breathing. She’s afraid of what will happen – and yet also, beneath that, he can also smell her now familiar musk.

Making sure that Hux can’t see it, he brings up his hand next to her face and lightly caresses her temple with one finger for a second, reassuring. Immediately, her eyes fix on his, bright like embers, and his mouth goes dry.

“Well, I never…” says Hux, who has finally found his tongue. “I have to give it to you, Ren. Bravo”.  

As if on cue, two serving droids rush into the room and lay out two placemats, cutlery, and wineglasses for them both. Ren swallows and turns towards him. “Well,” he says, “shall we eat?”  


***

  
She almost loses it, again, when the droids make her lie down naked on the table and then start arranging delicacies – _cold_ delicacies – all over her body. But she manages to control herself – having a robot place slices of chilled raw tuna on your slit is not exactly the most erotic experience ever. And then they walk in.

She has never been so conscious of being _looked at_ in her life. She can feel the stare of these two men, these _strangers_ , burning on her skin. _I’m nothing but an object_ , she thinks. _The object of their gaze._ She can hardly breathe.

Then Ren’s familiar outline comes into her sight, huge, towering over her. She looks past him at the ceiling, ignoring him, ignoring the knot in her stomach, the trembling which she is fighting to suppress.

He touches her. Like electricity.

Her eyes swing to his face before she can even react, and for a second she clings to him, as if he were the only solid thing in a drowning world. _Don’t let me go._

She can see how he loses his footing for an instant, stunned, then recovers and turns to his guest.

She closes her eyes, and gives herself over. 

***  


He hardly listens to Hux, who goes on and on about how he has humiliated the bitch. _Well, yes. But not in the way you think, Hux._

Hux is not the sort of man who would see this situation as an invitation to a gang bang, or who would immediately jump in to suck caviar off the woman’s nipple. He’d find that distasteful. He is aroused, observes Ren, not by the naked body of the girl in front of him, but by her defeat. It makes him feel powerful, makes him feel that he’s won. _Whereas I am aroused by her body, and by her humiliation._

And also, he realises, by her perfect passivity, like a breathing statue, which he marvels at. As if she were in a trance, again. Just lying there, perfectly still, so vulnerable, so – surrendered. Submitting. _To me._ He’s finding it increasingly uncomfortable to cross his legs.  
 

***  
 

She’s still aware, but as if from a distance, as if her body had nothing to do with her ( _a puppet,_ whispers some strange, faint memory). She can feel their touch as they serve themselves, their fingers grazing her nipples, her clavicles, her cunt, lingering slightly. She can hear the flame-haired man’s words, like acid – _you have really broken her… like a mare... she must have been gagging for it… weak-willed… desperate… pitiful… –_ and, in an odd way she both registers the burn, the pain, somewhere in her mind, and the words slide off her naked skin. She is being insulted, degraded, treated like a thing – and it somehow feels _right_.

_But then I’m out of my mind._

On and on it rolls - she's given herself over, she's nothing, a thing, surrendered, she's both hurting and above the hurt, and somewhere, deep, there's the constant wetness, the warmth, the dark...

“Rey.”

She opens her eyes. It’s quiet – she hadn’t realised. There is no Hux, no food, no serving droids. How long has it been?

Ren is standing next to her. He caresses her face. “It’s over.”

She turns on her side, the remains of the food crumbling all over her, off her, her body sticky with the juices from the food and her own, she's lying in her own filth, she can smell her own stink – _filthy, I’m so filthy_ – and she lets out the sob she hadn’t known she was holding.

Quickly, he picks her up in her arms, and she clings against his chest and sobs into it, as he covers her in his cloak and carries her away.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A transitional one, today. As always, thanks to everyone for your comments and kudos. They really make my day.

He finds her, in the morning, looking at his bookshelves.

“You can borrow any you like,” he says, startling her. She immediately moves behind the sofa, hugging herself, as if trying to belatedly hide her body from him. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Wary. Then, a beat later: “I’m not training today?”

“No. I thought you needed to rest.”

“Oh.” She looks at him, uncertain. It’s the first time since she’s been on this ship that she doesn’t know what the structure of her day will be. And it’s not as if she has many options.

“Is there anything you would like to read in particular?” he asks.

“Oh. I… I haven’t read that much. Stories, I mean. Not many textscreens on Jakku.”

 _Not many anything on Jakku._ “So how did you learn to read? It’s a rather... unusual skill, for someone in your position.”

That draws an unexpected grin from her. “When I was little, there was an old woman, Urma, who insisted on teaching all the children in my neighbourhood how to read and write in Galactic Basic. She would bribe us with fritters to learn the Aurebesh – I remember that she would give us one piece for every word we had spelt correctly, and when she ran out of batter, she wouldn’t make any more until each of us had read an entire line. They were so good, those fritters. The one who was able to read the most difficult line got the biggest piece. Believe me, hunger stimulates literacy very effectively in little children.”

 _I bet._ “So – who was this Urma woman?”

“She was a cook at the local provost’s house. She lived alone, and was allowed to take any leftovers home with her, apparently. And she used that to feed us in the evening – most of us would have otherwise gone to bed hungry. But she always said that being able to read and write was as important as eating, because it would make our world so much bigger, and it was the only real way in which no one could prevent us from being free.”

“Did she. I imagine she thought this because she had been a teacher at some point?”

She stares at him for a second. “No. She knew because she was a slave herself.”

  
***

  
He finds her something which he thinks she might enjoy – a book of travel stories. After all, she has seen so little of the universe. Vids are available, of course, but in his experience, being able to read another person’s thoughts so closely is so much more vivid. _And with no need for the Force, even._

He settles at his desk before the windows to work on some documents he needs to revise, and, behind him, she silently nestles in one of the sofas and immediately becomes absorbed in the book.

He’s been working for almost an hour when he looks up and and turns around. She’s still engrossed, approximately one quarter of the way through the book, laboriously scanning it, line after line. Occasionally, she stops and mouths an unfamiliar word, and he realises that she’s memorising it, no doubt to look it up later.

He had had no idea how things would go, the previous evening. He needed to show Hux that the girl was completely under his thumb, and he was certain that seeing her turned into human furniture would appeal to Hux's vindictiveness, as indeed it had. He had worried about her reaction, though – she has a deep well of submissiveness within her, of that he has no doubt, but he also knows she is extremely conflicted about it, and her innermost drive towards surrender is not incompatible with bursts of fury and pride. It would have been a disaster if she had lashed out just then. And it had been so sudden, so soon after that first step – he should have planned it better, but then Hux is not a variable but a constant, and he needed to act quickly.

He had fully expected to have to use the trigger he had implanted when he walked up next to her, on that table. It was only natural that she would be terrified and her reactions could be unpredictable. So when he had drawn up close to her, he had been ready to send her into that deep, submissive trance again – but then she had looked up at him, with those eyes, both pleading and challenging him, and he had known that there would be no need for it. Indeed, she seemed to have sent herself into a trance, to some depth of surrender which he had never witnessed before in anyone – and which, if Hux hadn’t been present, he would have immediately explored.

Of course, she collapsed at the end, crashing painfully back into reality. He is only grateful that he was there to catch her.

She notices his gaze and looks at him with a querying look. He shakes his head lightly. _Nothing._

She immediately plunges back into her reading, and he looks at her for a few more instants before closing the computer. He suddenly realises that she really shouldn’t be stretched out on the sofa, but decides against saying anything. For now. He’s giving her the day off today. Tomorrow they'll start in earnest.

_Rest and learn, scavenger. You’ll need it._

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and comments!

He’s told Kulhum, one of the most easygoing of his knights – or as easygoing as a Knight of Ren can be, which basically means that he won't break any bones – to start training with Rey in the mornings. Kulhum is a Quarren from Mon Calamari, whose amphibian physiology makes him particularly flexible. Rey has significantly improved her tone and gained muscle through her intensive training, but she will never be on a par, in terms of physical strength, with any of the bulky males (or most of the females) around her. So he thinks that emphasising her natural flexibility and speed will encourage her.

He’s watching, masked, from the viewers’ gallery in one of the Knights’ Halls on the ship, a long, vaulted room. Kulhum is teaching her a move that Ren is familiar with – it’s a Quarren favourite – in which he parries an attack by bending backwards on one leg, kicking his adversary with the other, and then springing with lightning speed from a crouch to land a blow while his adversary is still down. Even with the assistance of the Force (and of Quarren anatomy), it requires extreme flexibility in the backbend, combined with a high level of upper and lower body strength. There is no way she can do it at this point in her training. Kulhum elegantly demonstrates the move, his facial tentacles whipping like cords as he strikes. Then she gamely tries it, and promptly crumbles into a heap.

He sees her frown, then smile at Kulhum – _Why is she smiling at him?_ – and make some self-deprecating remark. The Quarren tentatively places his hand on her back, then says something encouraging, and he sees how Rey closes her eyes in concentration, throws her hands above her head, and bends back into a graceful loop. Supported by Kulhum’s arm, she manages to kick up her legs and land on her feet to a sort of crouch behind her hands. When she rises, she is glowing with pride.

Then Rey follows Kulhum’s gaze and notices him too. And smiles, slightly.

 _Traumatic attachment_ , he reminds himself. The girl has shown that she responds strongly (to put it mildly) to the right stimuli, but he is certain that she will have a reaction at some point, and will oscillate between submission and resistance. And she has the potential to become an extremely powerful Force user, but he wants her to be completely under his control. _His._ She needs to be broken.

Now she has been lulled into a certain sense of safety – he’s shown kindness to her, allowing her to rest, to read his books. The image of Kulhum's hand on her back flashes into his mind. Time to show her her place again.

As she emerges from the hall, she excitedly starts to say something about what she has just done, but he grabs her roughly by the arm, silencing her, and drags her along the long corridor towards the lift, practically throwing her in.

She immediately retreats into the tense wariness which he first saw in her, an animal on edge, and he feels a dark satisfaction. Although the lift is semicircular, with no corners to crouch in, she moves as far away from him as possible as he taps the code.

It’s an external lift, looking out into space. She hugs herself, turning to the curved glass wall, and stares at the masses of stars as the huge ship glides on and on. He can sense her fear and her anger rising. Her regret. “Where are we going?” she asks in a hard voice.

“To kill Luke Skywalker. Using the map you so conveniently stored in your brain.”

“You promised you would spare my friends.”

“But Luke Skywalker is not your friend,” he replies, his voice venomous. “You don't even know him. What on earth could a Jedi Master, the son of Darth Vader, the brother of Leia Organa, have to do with a worthless little slut from Jakku like you?”

She turns, white-faced with shock.

“Oh yes, don’t look at me like that. You were going all gooey in there when Kulhum touched you, weren’t you? You’re gagging for it. That’s why you humped my leg like a bitch in heat. I bet you were disappointed that the General and I didn’t take turns fucking you senseless on that table. I bet that’s how you made a living on Jakku, fucking anyone with some semblance of a cock. Hell, I bet you didn’t even charge them because you were so desperate.”

She’s speechless with fury and shame and indignation. “You…! I’ve never… I’ve never even…!”

He hits a button without looking back and the lift shudders to a halt. He strides forward, brusquely closing the gap between them, and seizes her by the arms. “What?” he says, in mock surprise. “Never been fucked? Really? A pathetic little cunt like you who is practically begging for it? I’m not surprised. After all, a man needs to be careful where he sticks his cock. But we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we.”

Suddenly he raises his gloved hand and tears the front of her robe open, leaving her chest exposed. She cries out and tries to cover herself, but he easily restrains her and pulls her breast band down to her waist. “There. Much better.”

Then he pushes her against the wall, lifting the skirts of her robe up and bunching them under her belt so that her exposed bottom is pressed against the glass. She averts her face, trying to shut his presence out, trying not to look at the hard, gleaming metal so close to her face – and sees, further ahead along the dark flank of the ship, two technicians standing on a protruding observation deck. Staring at her, goggle-eyed. The shame scalds her like tar.  

“Hm”, says the inhuman voice. “Shall we give them a show, then?” And he grabs at her crotch, hard, so that she cries out in shock. “Already sodden,” he says, smugly. “See, you’re such a slut. Nasty, filthy slut. Gagging for it.” And slides one gloved finger into her vagina, which spasms around it. “So tight, little slut.”

The technicians have hurriedly called their colleagues, and a small crowd is gathering on the observation deck, staring in disbelief and excitement. She tosses her head, turns to the other side – and sees exactly the same scene on another observation deck on the other side of the lift. She can imagine what they are seeing – the flushed, dishevelled, half-naked woman, her tits hanging out, her bare bottom squashed against the glass, being finger-fucked by their leader. And getting wet on it. Wanton, loose, shameless. A slut, a whore. _I want to die.  I want to die. I want to die._

“Yes. Now the entire ship will know what you are. Perhaps I should walk you naked on a leash when I am overseeing the military parade, just to drive the point home. Would you like that?”

Far, far beyond her control, her cunt clenches, hard, around his finger. “Oh yes you would.” The voice a metallic whisper now, barbwire coiling around her mind.

He pins her against the glass wall and tightens his grip, so that the base of his thumb is resting on her clitoris, and she clutches his forearms. “But don’t get any ideas, little bitch. You won’t be the regimental mascot, fucked by everyone, however much you’d like that. You are going to be _my_ pet. _My_ property. _My_ fucktoy.” And thrusts even deeper into her burning cunt, tearing into it, claiming. “ _Mine,_ ” he growls.

She cums so hard that he has to hold her up in mid-air as she spasms, her legs giving way beneath her, her body turning to jelly.

And then, when she’s finished, he drops her, so that she falls to the floor at his feet. Coolly he turns to the keypad and presses the button, and the lift starts moving again.

Raising his gloved hand, he sees her blood on the leather. And smiles.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we pick up where we left it. As always, thanks to everyone who leaves kudos and/or takes the time to comment! Hugely grateful.

“This is how it’s going to be from now on,” he says. “During the day, you train, and train hard. In the evening, I use you. Unless I say otherwise, whenever you are in my quarters, you will be naked at all times. You will wait for me in this position. You will not look at me in the eye unless I allow you to. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

She resists the urge to glare up. “Yes, Master.” Biting down on the word.

She is, again, kneeling before him. Only he is now standing, still in his full regalia of dark helmet, dark cloak, dark boots. She is still in her half-stripped, hanging robe, her breasts on display, her thighs sticky with sweat and cum and the bloody traces of her hymen.

“You may borrow any book on my bookshelves, and use the computer I have assigned you as you see fit. However, I will question you on that, and I will know if you lie. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Master.”

“Oh. And you will not touch yourself, much less cum, without my permission from now on.”

Now she can’t help but look up in shock. A Force wave buffets her face, throwing her onto her back.

“I told you not to look at me.” He walks further into the room, behind her, and she can hear the hiss of his helmet as it comes off, his cloak being unbuckled. She can hear how he moves down a corridor into the inner depths of his quarters, his personal area in which she has never been or dared enter, the distant swish of sliding wardrobe doors, clattering boots. He’s a tidy man, Ren.

Then his bare feet pad before her again. “I don’t think you’ve fully grasped the fact that your body is no longer your own, scavenger. It belongs to me”.  He prods her knee with his toe. “Get up. You can look at me now.”

She does so. He is standing in a black, loose shirt and trousers. “Come.” And leads the way into the corridor. They walk past a succession of closed doors, until the corridor turns to the left and they enter a large, windowless bedroom. Despite its size, and despite the huge bed against the far wall, it is fairly spartan: a wall of wardrobes, whose sliding doors she heard before; bed and pillows covered in simple white linen; the only other piece of furniture an austere metal standing lamp in a corner. It smells suddenly, shockingly male in here: a clean, instantly recognisable smell, a mix of soap and the sharp undercurrent of his skin, the scent she suddenly realises she recognises from the lift – he was that close.

To the left of the bed, another door leads to an en suite bathroom, with a vast tub and a shower which would fit five people, and a further recess, separated from the main area by an opaque glass sheet, which presumably houses the toilet. Again, the bathroom is bare to the point of anonymity, with no visible bottles or jars or personal items on the aseptic all-white surfaces, which are only softened by a pile of white towels on a stool.

“Undress me,” he says.

She stares at him in incomprehension. She is sleeping in the valet’s room – does that mean that she’s meant to help him in and out of his clothes now? _A grown man? Really?_

“Undress me,” he repeats. “I’m taking a shower. And you are going to wash me.”

She blinks in perplexity, then – with some difficulty, he’s so tall – starts to unbutton his shirt. And feels overwhelmed by the sudden intimacy, the smooth pallor of his skin, the tender, darker nipples, the light scattering of hair. His smell so intense now, it seems to envelop her as her fingers brush hurriedly down the row of buttons.

 _She’s blushing,_ he realises, amused. _I just finger-fucked her in front of the crew and she blushes when she takes my shirt off._

She stands behind him as he shakes the shirt off and holds her in her hands. _Now what…?_

“And the trousers.”

She gulps and positions again in front of him. Tentatively brings her hand close to his belt, but he unexpectedly unbuckles that and pulls it out, holding it in his hand for a few seconds. “That’s for later,” he remarks. And throws it on the bed.

She looks up, wide-eyed, and swallows, and his cock strains against the fabric. Which she notices, and her breath catches again. Her hand hovers as if it were near some creature about to bite, then she forces herself to steady it and tugs at the fastening. Which won’t come loose. She stares at it, paralysed.

“You need to pull down,” he says, not unkindly. And, placing his hand on hers, shows her how to do it. Her hand in his, the fastening slides down smoothly, and his rampant cock springs out.

He keeps his eyes on her face as he quickly steps out of his trousers – she’s staring at it in a changeable mix of fear, awe, nervousness, and, yes, desire. _My face is up here, said no man ever,_ he thinks, smiling to himself.

He steps past her and into the bathroom, where he turns on the hot water tap in the shower and then takes out a sponge and a bottle of gel from a drawer. “Here”. He hands them to her, and she is left holding them, uncertain, as he steps into the steaming water. _What does he want me to…?_

“I said you are going to wash me. Don’t make me say everything twice.”

The shower booth is so large she can stand in it next to him and not get wet. Which, after a moment’s hesitation, is what she does, tentatively, dirty clothes and all. After all, he’s said nothing about _her_ taking a shower too.

She squirts some gel onto the sponge, places the bottle on the floor, and approaches him, the hot water splashing on her face. He silently turns his long body towards her and watches her intently. She places the sponge against his torso – it’s so, so hot, the water is practically scalding – and starts to rub in circles, squinting against the steam and the spattering drops, water running down her arms.

She continues, surrounding his chest – he doesn’t move at all, expecting her to do all the work – then down each of his arms, over the callused hands. She’s getting wetter and wetter, her clothes weighted with the water, and when she leans in to sponge his armpits she might have well taken a shower herself. She brings the sponge down to his waist, lingering for a second on the protruding hipbones, the notch at the base of the back. She sees his scars, the ones before hers – the long curve across his abdomen, the indentation near the breastbone, the C-shaped one at the flank.

_God, he’s beautiful._

“Down.”

She crouches, careful not to slip on her long, ruined robe as it pools around her feet, and steadies herself against one of his legs. _So long._ She moves the sponge up and down from that position, reaching up to his thigh, down to the toes, then up the inside to the crotch…

And suddenly he hoists her up by the armpits and brings her into the pouring water, tearing off her clothes. “Take that off. You look disgusting.” But he’s smiling, slightly.

She clutches onto him in the downpour, stunned by the sudden beating of the water on her skin, her face, her nakedness next to his, the slipperiness. The sponge is still by his crotch. She stares at it, and he follows her gaze. Again, he takes her hand in his, making her drop the sponge, and places it on his cock.

It’s still hard. She feels it throb under her hand, the pulse of its vein, like a warm animal stirring, stretching. She has seen them before, but never touched one, much less held one. She looks past it down to the drain on the floor, unable to look at it, unable to look into his dark eyes.

Abruptly, there is no more water, and he grabs her by the waist and kisses her on the mouth, hard.  
 

***  
 

Despite appearances, he can be a patient man. He makes her dry him and dry herself first, which she does, still trembling from the unexpected kiss. At the end, he lifts his feet, one after the other, and she, crouching, carefully pat dries the soles, the wrinkled toes. And looks up, to see the ever-present erection, his hungry, wolfish expression as he looks down at her as though she were prey. “Kiss them.”

She rocks forward in dismay, onto all fours, her head hanging, staring at his feet, feeling that there is no air in her lungs even though she’s breathing fast, fast. She can feel his eyes boring into the back of her head, the sheer dominance of him towering above her. Her core, as fluid and hot as the water in the shower. As gushing.

 _I’m melting into nothingness_. And she leans forward and plants her lips on his left instep. And it’s as if all energy had left her: she can’t move, she can’t think. She rests her forehead on his feet and is overcome by a wave of complete peacefulness. Of purpose. _Here. Here_ , cries out every cell of her body. _Here. This. Him._

He watches her mutely, astounded. How she submits. How she falls into it, more profoundly that he had imagined. A dribble of pre-cum squirts out of his aching cock.

He hoists her up again, this time holding her up against his body, her legs around his waist, his hand clawing into her thighs, into her sides. He wants to enter her, to tear her her apart, to devour her. Something is bellowing, a low, rumbling, inarticulate roar, and he realises it’s his own voice, coming up from the depths.

He pushes her down on the bed and thrusts savagely into her, spreading her thighs with his knee, holding her arms down, desperate to pour himself into her.

Which he does, quickly, but not before feeling her strain and tighten under him, grip and grip and grip, and suddenly he hears her cry out, and his body lets go and spends itself in a fiery burst.  
 

***

  
She feels as though she’s being dredged through cotton, all her limbs as limp and forceless as a newborn’s. When her wits start to return, she turns to look at him by her side, where he’s rolled off her to lie on the bed, his back turned to her. She gazes at the length of his spine, the tuft of hair at the base, the constellations of scattered moles, and feels the mammalian urge to curl up against his warmth.

“Leave,” comes his voice, slightly strangled. He doesn’t turn.

Something withers in her. Slowly, she slides off the bed and walks out, hunched and holding herself in her arms, her only embrace tonight.

He turns his head, raising an eye above the whipped white storm of sheets and covers, just in time to see her solitary outline disappear in the darkened room.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one, in which Ren starts to get subversive. 
> 
> As always, thanks SO MUCH to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment and/or kudos. It really makes it worth it.

Domination has its anticlimaxes. He’s had a truly horrible day, with Hux insisting on getting in his face _all the time_ about the stupidest things, and he’d really like nothing better now than taking a hot shower and reading something in bed, but he has to review and correct a report – _because that’s just what the Master of the Knights of Ren is for, reading reports_ – so that evening he tells Rey to just go to bed or read quietly while he works.

She sits cross-legged on the carpet against one of the sofas – it has been made clear to her that furniture is off boundaries now unless he says otherwise, and he hasn’t said otherwise. After one hour or so she looks up from her book and asks: “Why do you want to kill Skywalker?”

He doesn’t look up. “Those are the Supreme Leader’s orders.”

She pretends to ponder for a second. She has been numb all day, after last night, and now she feels a dangerous prickling of recklessness. “So you’re doing it because _your_ Master is telling you to?” _If you’re going to hurt me, hurt me properly, you bastard._

 _That_ makes him turn around and look at her. She’s treading dangerous ground, here, as she knows perfectly well. It’s also clear to him that she’s trying to provoke him. He bites back what he thinks of Snoke. “Something like that.”

She shakes her head slightly. “I really don’t get it. You are not an idiot. Why do you align yourself with these people?”

It’s so obvious where this is heading to, but still, he plays along. “What people?”

“The First Order. The ones doing bad things. You have to know that it doesn’t work, in the long run. Poison is poison. Evil. Whatever triumphs you may have are hollow, and you know it.”

“Evil?” He shuts the computer – _fuck it, let Hux deal with it –_ and turns fully around in his chair. “You think the First Order is evil? By the way, I don’t remember giving you permission to look at me.”

She drops her gaze. Not in a particularly fearful way, though. She is angry. “It _is_ evil. As is the Dark side,” she says, in the tone of one explaning the obvious.

“You have some very simplistic ideas, scavenger. The Republic and the Resistance are good, the First Order is evil. The Light is good, the Dark side of the force is evil. You are good, I – presumably – am evil. Things are more complicated than that. And never black or white.”

_Which is pretty rich coming from Kylo Ren._

He stares at her for a long minute, having obviously overheard her thought. “Look at me. What exactly was so great about the Republic?”

“What was so great? It was a democracy! People were free! The First Order just wants to turn everyone into Snoke’s slaves.”

“Free? Really? That’s interesting. So how could it be then that you were taught how to read by a slave? In fact, technically, you were a slave too. Your parents sold you to that beast, and it was perfectly legal, because under Jakku law children were the property of their parents. In the Republic – in the Resistance’s precious Republic – slavery was legal, because they daren’t interfere with local planetary law, and that carried over into the Empire. Not anymore. It’s been banned on every planet under the First Order. And we have destroyed the main slave trade hubs in the galaxy. And we are the evil ones?”

“You massacre innocent people! Poe told me how you had those villagers killed in cold blood!”

“Oh, was that what he told you? This is a war, scavenger. Those villagers were harbouring and aiding an enemy combatant, and, by the way, running a brisk trade in arms smuggling. Only one month before, they had ambushed one of our patrols. Those who didn’t die in the explosion were tortured and killed later.”

She is speechless for a second. “But… you killed their children too! How were the children guilty of any of that?”

 “I don’t kill children. Where do you think we get our stormtroopers from? That’s how your friend Finn survived – we took him in after his parents blew up their home rather than surrender.” He leans forward, his eyes burning with an unexpected intensity. “Do you think that I, of all people, would harm children for things they are in no way responsible for?”

She puzzles over that for a second. _Of all people._ Then her anger, which has been dull and simmering all day, flares up again. She feels suddenly light-headed, as if she were gliding, vertiginously, down a slide. Like in those dreams in which you say the unthinkable.

“You killed your father.”

The four unspeakable words come out of her mouth, unbidden, and hang in mid-air, which suddenly feels thick like water. _Did I really just say that?_ And then: _He’s going to kill me._

But he just goes very still, very quiet. “Wouldn’t you kill yours, if you could?”

And before she knows it, she’s leapt up to her feet in a madness of fury and blindly hurled herself at him, kicking and clawing and screaming, calling him every insult she knows. Wanting to make him bleed, make him suffer, hurt him, kill him. _FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU._

He shields himself from her blows, then grabs both her wrists and slaps her across the face, once. And roughly lifts her up and throws her onto the floor, pinning her down by her wrists as she struggles wildly beneath him. He can feel the mix of her grief and anger boiling over, her desperate fury, her desire to hurt him, to hurt anyone, anything to make the pain stop. How the Force is gathering darkly around them like a humming, bristling distortion across an energy field.

_That’s right, little scavenger. Hate me._

And suddenly, a spike – a brutal black surge from her, which would have thrown any other person not as skilled in the Force as him against the wall, which makes him gasp and forces him to summon up all his strength, shaking, to repel it.

She stops struggling, as if emptied out, and starts to cry. Desperate, racking sobs, almost like a wounded animal’s howling. He lowers further down onto her body, so that she is imprisoned by his weight on her, enveloped and contained by him. Held.

At long last, the sobbing abates. She weeps softly, burying her hot, tear-streaked face in his neck. “Why are you doing this to me?”

And he, almost tenderly. “Because you need it.”

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

He is called away, the day after. She surprises herself by asking him how long he’ll be gone.

“A week, I expect,” he says as he finishes arranging his cloak. He looks up at her. “Not that it’s any of your business.” But he’s secretly glad she has asked.

She spends the week – which turns into almost two – continuing her usual routine, which has a strange feeling of inertia now that he’s not there: training with Kulhum, then lunch in the canteen, then more training, then dinner and going back to his empty quarters. She spends the evenings reading, but never manages to quite lose herself in any book, as she’s constantly half-expecting to hear the door hiss open and the familiar steps come in. She knows he’ll be back soon, of course, but finds it hard to put much into anything she does if he is not there as her audience.

His absence, she notices, has also removed the only obstacle between her and those who seem eager to let her know just how much of a piece of Rebel scum she is. At first she notices the increasingly open stares as she walks by, particularly when she is not with Kulhum, on her way to and from the showers or Ren’s quarters. Then the occasional jeers and catcalls. Then the straightforward insults. _Rebel whore. Jedi slut. Fucking piece of shit._ Once, even, in the presence of a passing General Hux, who merely smirks at the insult and her impassivity. They hate her and despise her, and she’s fully aware that all that’s keeping some of these people (quite a few of them, actually) from raping her to death is their utter terror at Ren’s anger. _When the cat’s away, the mice will play._

She is ungrounded, she realises one night as she gives up on her attempts at concentrating on a book. Untethered. The thought is incredibly distressing, but she realises it’s the truth. She’s like a pendulum, swinging to and fro with the momentum, going nowhere, with no one to catch it, and gradually, inexorably, slowing down to stillness. During her childhood and teenage years in Jakku the only point to her life was waiting for her family to return: clinging all the more fiercely to that belief because she half-knew, all along, that nobody would ever come back for her. It is suitable that her life, whatever little of that there was, had started in a desert. _Barren._

And now she has fixated on Ren, as if he were the long-awaited ghost who would come back for her. As she had fixated, as a girl, on those men who would show her some kindness (or not quite kindness), touch her, talk to her, make her feel that she _existed_. She had been so eager for someone to pay attention to her, and now she has found herself in the hands of someone who is willing to devote his remarkably intense attention to her, under very specific conditions. And it makes her wet, every single time.

_Fuck, I’m pathetic._

Even though she’s tempted, she doesn’t go into his room in his absence. For one, he’ll know. But it also feels strangely – _wrong._ Just in the same way in which, at night, lying in her narrow bed in the dark, she refrains from touching herself, however much she would like to, however much she can feel her own moisture as she remembers his body, his hands, his weight on her. _I’m doing this to you because you need it._

***

 

She knows he’s back because of the immediate, and visible change in the crew’s attitude, as if they had suddenly, collectively snapped to attention. No more jeering, she notices.

She doesn’t see him until late at night, when he comes back to his quarters to find her in the position he taught her, kneeling naked and open-thighed in expectation.

She can sense his turmoil, the boiling, seething mix of frustration and fury, even without looking at his face - it radiates from him like a spiky, electrified field. He is so caught up in his anger that he has completely forgotten about her.

“Scavenger.” He stops abruptly at the sight of her. She can hear how his rage is abruptly blunted by desire as he sees her, unexpectedly abased before him. His voice softens, somewhat. “You obeyed. Well done.” And she feels a sudden rush of pride at his words, which almost instantaneously disgusts her, remembering her week.

_Like a dog desperate to please its owner. For fuck’s sake._

He must have caught the drift of her thoughts, because suddenly his gloved hand grips a lock of her hair and tightens, and his fury flares up again. “ _Exactly_. Still having trouble getting used to it, _bitch_?”

He pulls her up, painfully, so that she has to stand up following his fist. He pulls her along roughly, striding down the length of the corridor and into his room, where he throws her on the bed. And for the first time since she’s been on this ship, he uses a Force choke-hold on her – she feels the sheer intent of his will, of his rage, closing around her throat, pulling her up, so that she is forced to kneel very straight, her knees almost hovering above the surface of the bedcover. Her arms are jerked back like a puppet’s, like that first time he used the Force on her in the forest. He allows her a tiny thread of air, just enough to keep her from passing out, and so that she has to make constant efforts to breathe.

She has seen him in a rage before, but always at others. This is the first time it’s aimed at her. And it’s terrifying. He looks as if darkess had taken over his features, his black eyes wild, his huge body straining to contain the sheer monstruous fierceness of his wrath.

He holds her like this, straining in his hold, for a few endless moments, then abruptly releases her throat, drops her and pushes her over, so that she falls on all fours onto her face, still on the bed. Her head is jerked up, her mouth forced open as if a thick, invisible wedge had been driven into it.

“Let’s see how you take it then, you fucking bitch,” he mutters, undoing his trousers. And violently sticks his cock in her mouth, so deep and so hard that her first immediate instinct is to gag.

“ _Don’t you dare,”_ he hisses, ramming against the back of her throat. She imagines her uvula being quashed and tortured by his thick, angry cock, and fights desperately not to retch.

He’s holding onto her hair, fucking her face, which is turning redder and redder as it becomes harder and harder to breathe. She’s nothing to him right now, absolutely nothing but a vessel for his rage, something into which to pour his fury. His scapegoat.

His pace is become increasingly frenzied, wilder and wilder, battering into her, pulling her face so tight against him that her nose is buried against his skin, the musky tang of his rage all-pervasive. She can hardly breathe, and it feels as if she’s going to burst a vein any second now. Her entire face and neck will be sore for days after this. If she survives, that is.

And then suddenly he cries out, a cry that is more animal than human, and he explodes in her, so hard and so abundantly that she panics that she will drown in his semen. But he withdraws, trailing long strings across her face, her naked breasts, her hair, and she gasps for air, clutching at her throat.

She collapses onto her forearms, trembling, but he remains standing, his cock still at half-mast, his eyes wild and feral like a beast’s. Staring at her where she lies, covered in his cum.

_Marked._

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update - crazy week. As always, thanks for every comment and kudos!

He can’t sleep, later. He’s sent her to her room after allowing her to take a shower in his bathroom, hardly speaking to her.

He was furious, and he took it out on her. Which was ironic, because the reason he was so furious was precisely that he’d been trying – rather unsuccessfully – to shield her.

Snoke projects those ridiculously large holograms to try and make himself look more impressive. But it’s always his voice that penetrates to Ren’s core, like dripping acid. “You’re getting far too attached to that whore, apprentice. I can sense it. It’s – concerning.”

He tried, as he always tries, to remain as impassive and unfeeling as possible in his presence and deny it, but it’s hard to deceive the Supreme Leader. “What would you have me do, Master?” Trying to buy some time.

“Break her. Completely. And prove it to me. I am willing to allow you your indulgences – but only if they are consistent with your path to the Dark side.”

“She _is_ broken, Master.”

“Yes, Hux told me about your little sex games, apprentice,” chuckled Snoke. “There’s very little merit to that – she clearly is just a slut who will open her legs for anyone who takes the time to tickle her. No, I require more… compelling proof that you have her completely under your thumb. That she will follow you blindly to the Dark side.”

He hesitated for a second, fearing what he suspected. “What proof, Master?"  
 

***

She can feel his distress from her own bed, like tossing, frothing dark waves in his mind. At first she thought it was because of what he had done to her earlier. Interestingly enough, he seemed to have been much more shocked and distraught, afterwards, than her. Even though she had not orgasmed – he hadn’t given her the time, or the space – she had felt her own involuntary arousal, which she now is no longer surprised by in this kind of situation. His release, by contrast, had been brutal, but he took little pleasure in it – it was more as if he couldn’t help himself, and was even horrified by his actions. 

But now it’s clear, as she senses the violent thrashing of his feelings, that it’s not just that. Or rather, it’s what underlies it. He’s never lost control with her, until now. And it frightens him.

It goes on and on, never letting up, but increasing in intensity. Until she finally swings out of her bed and pads out into the dark living room, from where she can see the sliver of light at the end of the corridor. _Sod it._ And walks towards the door to his bedroom.

He’s so distressed that he doesn’t even hear his door hiss open, or feel her concerned presence. “Master,” she half-whispers, after a while.

He looks up in shock to find her standing next to the door, partly afraid of his reaction, partly worried for him, with her worry clearly taking the upper hand. “What are you doing here?” he sputters, sitting up.

“I… could sense your trouble, Master. I was worried. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

He stares at her for a second in disbelief. After what happened earlier, after what he did, still she has taken the risk to come in here, without his permission, and face him, even though she’s clearly afraid of him. Because she’s worried for him. That must have taken a lot of bravery, he realises. _And she cares. For me._

“Is everything all right?” Her voice small.

 _No,_ he thinks. _Everything’s not all right._ But he gestures for her to come close to the bed. As she starts to kneel on the floor, he pats on the sheet itself, next to him. “Come here.”

She gingerly sits on the edge of the bed, watching him watch her. He sighs. _Might as well get this over with now_. “We will be reaching Ahch-To in a few days. You know what we’ll be doing there.”

She stares at him in silence. No response.

“The Supreme Leader summoned me today. He’s – concerned about you. He doesn’t think that you are sufficiently advanced on your way to the Dark side.” _And he thinks that I’m becoming too close to you._ But he leaves that out. “He wants me to prove to him that you are turning to the Dark. Or he will have you killed.” _Probably by me, as yet another way to test me._

She gulps. “How… does he want you to prove that?”

A heartbeat. “He wants you to kill Luke Skywalker. Not me. You.”

She goes deathly pale, as if all her blood had been drained from her body. 

“It’s the only way for you to survive. You have to understand that.”

“I’ve never killed anyone in my life,” she whispers, her voice taut. “I can’t. And Luke Skywalker! As you said, I’ve never even met him. He’s done nothing to me. How could I kill him in cold blood?”

This, surprisingly, seems to light a sudden flame of fury in him. “Luke Skywalker deserves to die like a dog, and painfully. I have dreamt of killing him for _years_.” His voice is suddenly drenched in anger and hatred so intense that she is taken aback. And there is also, like an overflowing current in the background… disgust? _What the hell did Luke Skywalker do to you?_

Overhearing her thought, he grips her wrist like a vice. “Oh, I know you and your precious Rebellion think he is a hero, he is the One, he’s the virtuous messiah who will lead the galaxy back to peace and justice”, he mutters through clenched teeth. “If you knew, if you only knew…” He releases her as suddenly as he had seized her, and they both fall silent for a second, stunned by his intensity. He hadn’t realised that he was hurting her. And then, amazingly, he says: “I’m sorry.”

He’s looking at her in his intent way, and suddenly, for a fraction of a second, he seems as vulnerable and afraid as a lost child. On an impulse, she reaches out her hand – the marks of his fingers still visible around the wrist – and caresses his naked flank where he sits up. He shudders but does not otherwise react. Just stares at her.

She moves forward and kisses him on the lips, grazing them lightly first, then more deeply as his mouth opens to hers, and she shifts sideways to straddle his legs without breaking the kiss, so that she is sitting on his lap. She draws back from his mouth and kisses him across the face, each eyelid, down his neck, down his shoulder, until she reaches his nipple. He gasps in unexpected pleasure as she licks it, then sucks one first, then the other.

She moves further down, sliding down his legs, while he keeps staring, as if fascinated by her movements. Kisses all the way down his stomach, along the line of thin dark down pointing towards his groin… And then moves up and kisses him again in the mouth. She can feel his penis harden as she stretches up against him, his hands warm on her waist as he tentatively holds her, supporting her, bringing her closer. As he loses himself in the kiss.

Silently she eases herself onto his hardness – she’s already wet – and starts to rock slightly against him, setting the rhythm, stifling her groan against his neck as she slides back and forth, her tightness enveloping him.

There are no words, no orders, no thoughts, nothing but their final cries as they come against each other, first her, then him, and then the gradual slowdown of their hearts, their breaths in the darkened room. He holds her against his chest as his penis softens and slides out of her. Then kisses the top of her head and gently turns her over, so that she is left lying on her side, spooned against him.

He picks up the edge of the fallen duvet and drapes it over them both. And listens to her soft breath spiralling down until he too falls asleep.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments and kudos, as always! I really, really appreciate them.

She wakes to a slight panic, in the strange bed, then remembers. The sheets next to her are crumpled and empty in the darkness, but his smell is unmistakable. She stumbles out, half-blinking, to find him working at his desk in the living room.

“It’s very early,” he says, without looking up. “Go back to sleep.”

“What time is it?”

He mentions a number, something meaningless to her. “It’s always dark on a ship,” she mumbles. “Just one dark hour running into the next. I miss the sun.”

“Go back to bed,” he insists. “I’ll call you when you need to get up.”

And he does. But this time not to make sure that she gets to her training on time – a task usually left to his droids – but rather to make her come with him to some unknown part of the ship.

“Where are we going?” she asks, as they go up on a lift she’s never been in before.

“You wanted the sun.”

The lift doors open at what seems to be the last and highest deck of the ship – onto a sudden brightness that makes her pupils contract. And they step out into a green vastness. With her desert background, she was rendered speechless by the lush vegetation on Takodana – and this is a concentrated version of that. _This must be what they call a jungle,_ she thinks, as her gaze loses itself in the dense green mass of trees and undergrowth and hanging vines. The air is thick with humidity, buzzing and creaking with a myriad invisible creatures, smelling of soil and decomposing matter, the smell of living things. Somewhere ahead of them, she can hear the gurgling of water, and feels its coolness, and is as stunned as always by what feels like the impossibly exotic luxury of _running water._

_"What is this place?”_

“The First Order has botanists. They need somewhere to work.”

“How…?” She looks up at the ceiling, which seems to be much higher here than on the rest of the ship. It’s transparent, so that they can see the starry space outside – but, interspersed along the outside of the hull, there are a number of large reflective surfaces, some of them starting to light up.

“Solettas,” he says. “Solar mirrors. They reflect light when we are near a sun, and store it up for later, for when we are in deep space. The botanists like to mimic natural cycles of light and darkness. It’s dawn, now.”

They walk along a path through the foliage, so thick that leaves brush wetly against their faces, and dew clings onto their clothes, as the light gradually warms and rises, its rays shifting and advancing behind them, following at their heels on the path, like a bright, slithering snake.

He turns his face aside, hiding a smile at her visible glee. “See? It’s not all dark.”  
 

***

They take a longer route down to the canteen for breakfast, down a sloping corridor, so that she can release some of her excitement – she’s practically leaping and bouncing in enthusiasm, asking whether she can come here again, what do they do exactly there, do they take specimens from every planet they visit or is it a specific ecosystem, it’s so, so beautiful, how...

And as they are walking past a group of officers and stormtroopers, she overhears one of them sniggering, just as he is coming out of earshot: “… Ren’s little whore…”

She halts for a second in shock before Ren grasps her by the biceps, hard, and wordlessly forces her on, his long, unrelenting strides dragging her along. She only has time to witness the violent disembodied hurling, the sickening crunch of bone against the wall, the red mess of the man’s face, a dripping, bleeding pulp, still breathing but only just, as his fellow officers stand paralysed in terror, and don’t dare even move to help him until Ren is at a safe distance.  
 

*** 

They sit in the area reserved to the senior command in the officer’s mess, an open-space lounge with large windows onto space, and Ren orders breakfast for them both without asking her. She is still in shock, not least by the contrast of what she has just experienced – the beauty and the brutality – when she spots Hux, approaching them. She can see how Ren expects an upbraiding over the treatment of his men, but it’s immediately obvious that what Hux is about to say has nothing to do with that. He looks deeply concerned, frightened even, and even paler than usual.

“Commander. There is a change of plans. We have received new intelligence on Skywalker. He is no longer on Ahch-To.”

Ren frowns. “How…?”

“We intercepted communications between the Rebels. It seems they managed to find him and sent a ship to retrieve him. Urgently. He probably left the planet yesterday.”

“Urgently…?”

Hux looks aside, takes a deep breath. “The Rebel command is in flux. The communications we intercepted stated… they implied…” He looks at Ren in the eye. “General Organa is dead.”

Ren’s silence is so absolute, it’s as if the air had suddenly thickened around him, as if he suddenly were in another, different dimension. _Which he is._ She remembers the times, mercifully few, when she suffered serious injuries – the immediate shock to the body making you numb, every system shutting down, so that everything seemed unreal, detached. It was only later that the real, terrible pain set in.

Neither she nor Hux dare say anything. Hux looks at her, briefly, wondering, and for a second it feels almost as if he’s seeking her support.

“How?”

Hux clears his throat. “A heart attack, it seems.” A second. Then, softer: “From what we could infer from the communications, it was sudden. Quick.”

An interminable moment. And then Ren’s voice, hard and impersonal even though he’s left the mask in his quarters. “Change of course then – back to our previous course. I will confer with the Supreme Leader later today and let you know about the new plan as soon as possible.”

Hux nods curtly, glances at her one last time, and leaves. And she is left sitting next to the silent, wounded man behind his hardening, impenetrable cuirass.

   
***

  
He leaves her with Kulhum in the training room without saying one single word. She can sense the upheaval in his mind, all the more horrible because it lies deep, deep beneath a surface that has suddenly become unnaturally flat and featureless. She daren’t say anything, much less try to connect through the Force: it would be, she feels, like stepping into the middle of an electric storm.

When he returns to his quarters, that night, he looks as if all life has been sucked out of him. Cursing Snoke inwardly, she tries to make herself as still as possible in her kneeling, naked position, a place of steadiness. Something to lean on.

He ignores her, moving to his room like a sleepwalker. She can hear him take off his clothes and change, put his boots away, his tidy evening habits. Then he comes back and sits on a sofa.

“She’s gone,” he muses at last, as if to himself. “My m… General Organa is gone.”

Even though he hasn’t given her the order, she approaches him, kneels in front of him. “I’m so sorry, Master.”

He gazes at her for a long, long moment, and she can see all the turmoil in his eyes as his feelings shift and flow into each other in their dark depths. Grief. Fear. Abandonment (the little boy, again). Regret. Pain. Anger.

Anger. So intense. _Latch onto that._ Gently she takes his hand and places it on her cheek. He looks at her, lost, not knowing what she means, for a second. Then she makes a gesture and he understands.

He slaps her across the face, hard, and she can feel his fury flaring up as his hand strikes her, then bursting hotly out as he slaps her again. And again. And again.

Then he stares at her, panting, as she holds herself on her knees, trembling slightly, her face red with the weals. Offering herself as the substitute. _Do it to me._

For the first time, she sees him cry.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your comments and kudos! I THINK I have the rest of the plot sort of mapped out in my mind, but please let me know your thoughts if you feel like it. Thanks as always!

The next day, he is gone. To see Snoke again, she presumes, although no one will tell her. There are no insults or catcalls any more, though: Sergeant Hinkka’s new titanium jaw seems to serve as a very effective, and permanent, reminder of what happens when someone messes with Ren’s property.

During those days, she continues her routine, training with Kulhum until the evening, then reading in Ren’s quarters until bedtime (although she had hoped that Ren would have given permission for her to visit the garden floor, a quick inquiry with the stormtroopers outside the door makes it clear that this is not the case).

One late afternoon, she notices that there is a spectator watching them train in the Knights' Hall. Hux.

He approaches her as she comes out of the showers. “I wondered if I might speak to you?” he says, in his stilted tones.

“I can’t see why that would be a problem,” she says, pointedly, rubbing her head with a towel. If there is a problem with his speaking to her, then that’s _his_ problem, not hers. Or at least, she hopes so.

Hux takes a look at her relaxed, loose clothes in some distaste – _I just finished training and was about to collapse into a sofa for the rest of the evening, Hux. What did you expect, a ballgown? –_ and asks: “Perhaps you’d like a drink in my quarters?”

 _I hope that doesn’t mean what it sounds like_ , she thinks, but Hux doesn’t seem to be that sort of man. He’s probably embarrassed by being seen talking to her in public. And any information or leverage she can obtain from the world outside Ren can only be useful, she reasons. So she nods.

Hux’s quarters are apparently on the other side of the ship, at what seems to be the farthest point from Ren’s – _makes sense, keeping them as far apart as possible, I suppose._ They are considerably darker than Ren’s, though – Hux seems to have a preference for dark wood, which gleams blackly in the glow of a faux chimney fire. Where Ren’s living quarters are minimalistic (except for his books), Hux seems to take extreme pride in displaying his military and family paraphernalia, of which there appears to be plenty: the walls are hung with sabres and pennants and insignia, a panoply of old-world firearms, a framed bloody uniform. A display case holds his multiple badges and decorations, the record of his meteoric rise through the ranks of the First Order.

He gestures for her to sit in an armchair before the fire, under the picture of a square-jawed older man in a uniform that hangs above the mantel. “Corellian brandy?” he asks. She shrugs in acceptance – she has absolutely no idea about alcohol – and he hands her a balloon glass of the tawny liquor, then sits across from her, cradling his own glass.

“I wanted to talk with you about Commander Ren,” he starts. _As expected._ “As you can probably imagine, at first I was rather… resistant to your presence on my ship. I regarded you as a potential risk. Still do, as a matter of fact,” he smiles thinly. “But Commander Ren seems to find your apprenticeship to him important for his own contribution to the war effort. I cannot pretend to understand anything about the Force or how it works” – he makes a disparaging little wave with his free hand – “but it keeps Commander Ren focused, and, more importantly, the Supreme Leader also regards it as important. So anything that helps to keep Commander Ren focused is also a priority for me. Whatever it may involve.” And he looks at Rey with a twisted smile, making it clear that he is certain that _whatever it may involve_ involves some very odd things indeed.

She feels suddenly irritated by the turn of this conversation. “Yes. And what do you want from me, General? It’s not as if I have much choice in this matter.”

“Oh, on the contrary. I believe that you do have a choice. A very clear choice. I wanted to speak to you before Commander Ren returns because I very much hope that you will be making the _right_ choice over the next few days. Which will be a… delicate time for us all.”

“How so?”

“General Organa’s death will be a turning point. Not only generally in the war, but more specifically for Commander Ren. Commander Ren’s reactions can be… somewhat unpredictable, at times. As I am sure you already know” – again, his foxy smile. – “This may tilt the balance definitively. And I want to make sure that you understand the consequences of your choice.”

“You expect me to kill someone I don’t know in cold blood”, she says, flatly.

Hux finishes his brandy, sets the glass on a sideboard, and steeples his long fingers, looking at her. “Families are so interesting, don’t you think? Even yours, by its very absence – indeed, perhaps it was its absence that made it so important to you.” She blushes in a mix of fury and shame at this, but opts to remain silent and not interrupt him. “Oh, don’t feel slighted. God knows I am well acquainted with families and failings”, and glances up at the portrait above the mantel, but does not elaborate. “Commander Ren’s family history is – remarkably complex. I suggest you find more about it before you make a decision.”

“You are suggesting that because Luke Skywalker is Ren’s uncle that would in some way justify my killing him?” she asks, puzzled.

“I’m suggesting that you have no idea of the larger picture”, he replies wryly, “and given your… proximity to the Commander, you might try to obtain a better view of it. If you persist in your obvious intention not to obey the Supreme Leader's command, you will die. You may think that this is of no great importance – and you wouldn’t be that wrong on an individual level – but Commander Ren is a pivotal piece of the First Order, and his delayed progress would be detrimental to our overall strategy.”

“You do realise that I don’t give a shit about the First Order?”

He frowns. This is obviously something that he knows happens to some people, but finds hard to understand. “Yes. But you do give a shit about Commander Ren.”

She is so taken aback, she cannot think of a reply. He goes on: “It’s obvious. And you might consider why someone you do give, as you put it, such a shit about is involved with the First Order to begin with. Perhaps we are not quite the bogeyman you have heard about all your life. And perhaps the Rebels are not quite the paladins of virtue they claim to be.”

“You blew up the Hosnian system”, she mutters between clenched teeth. “Five planets. With their entire population. You wiped them out because they wouldn’t submit to the First Order.”

“They were warned,” he replies. “They were given time to evacuate. They didn’t. They were given the option to negotiate their surrender. They refused to. They keep supporting the Resistance and its rot. We had no option. And it did bring the war practically to an end – the Resistance is hopefully on its last legs now. Many more million lives were spared because of that.” His face grows grim, all of a sudden. “It was a hard choice. But we have to make hard choices every day.”

She sits back, suddenly dizzy. _How the hell did I end up here? I was salvaging parts from wrecks in the desert two days ago, and now I’m sitting here, discussing the ethics of galactic warfare with the person in charge of it._

“All I wanted to say is, things are never that simple. Find out more before you decide. For everyone’s sake.” And he abruptly rises, indicating that this is the end of the conversation. He calls for two stormtroopers to escort her back to Ren’s quarters.

As she leaves, she realises she hasn’t even touched the brandy.

***

One morning, several days later, she wakes up to find, not the usual server droid tidying up Ren’s quarters, but Ren himself. Looking extremely serious.

Uncertain whether to kneel, or what – he’s only given her the protocol for receiving him in the evening, and she’s actually going to be late for training – she stutters: “Oh, hello. I… er, I was on my way to the training room.”

“You’re not training today. Sit.”

He gestures towards one of the sofas, and she does, while he remains standing, staring unnervingly down at her from his height.

“I have sought my Master’s counsel. You will kill Skywalker. He will be captured, and you will be brought to him, and you will kill him. This will close both your circle and mine.”

“The circle of the Dark side?” she spits in fury.

“The circle of your submission to me,” he replies. “And the circle of my cutting off the past. And my sacrifice. I would much rather kill him myself.” He opens his hands in acceptance. “But the Master has shown me how much more of a letting go your killing him will be for me.”

“Well, you can take your circles and stuff them up your arse, _Master!_ I’m not killing Luke Skywalker! I don’t care if you kill me!” She is suddenly shouting, she realises.

“You me gave your word, scavenger…” he starts to say in his dangerous low voice.

“I gave you my word that I would submit to you and your training as my Master! And that I wouldn’t try to escape. I have submitted to you, and I will not run away, even if I have to die for it. But I will not kill a man.” She looks down. “All I can give you is myself – I can’t give you someone else’s life. It’s not mine to give.”

He sighs. “I feared that this would happen.” He looks at her oddly for a long moment, then says: “Meditation time, Rey.”

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised (and yes, more to come). Comments and kudos always hugely welcome.

“Meditation time, Rey.”

He watches as the words hit her, almost as if with physical force, and she stares at him, wild-eyed and startled, for a second. Then it’s as if something comes up, a sea rising up to swallow her, and her eyes lose their focus and dim as she sinks, her embattled expression softening and dulling into utter surrender.

“Good girl,” he smiles, then leans forward, picks her up, and carries her limp body to his bed. He carefully props her up against the pillows, lowers the light, and sets the metronome, which he has set on top of a chair, in motion, so that it glints catching the light in its arc.

He could use the Force to make her kill Skywalker, of course – despite her increasing powers, he has no doubt that he would be able to compel her, and that would perhaps be easier for her, as she would be able to claim, afterwards, that she hadn’t done it voluntarily, she was under his control when she did it. Jedi, or Sith, mind tricks _–_ but that would defeat the purpose. Snoke would know, for one. And the point of it is to break her: to bring her to the point where she decides, of her own free will, to take the step and kill Skywalker, _because he tells her to._

It’s clear that she won’t, now, though. Much as she has come to accept and even embrace his dominance over her, her submission has its limits: she really is willing to die rather than kill someone she believes is an innocent man (and his mouth twists in disgust at the thought of Skywalker as innocent). His desire to break her completely, to bring her under his total control, burns him so intensely that he is happy to give up the man who has been the target of most of his revenge fantasies for years.

So he will go in through the back door that he created, unbeknownst to her, and trap her using her own desires. He will make her betray her own principles not because she is forced to, but because she can’t help herself. Just the thought of it, he realises, is already making him hard.

Gently he takes her clothes off – the crossover top, the loose trousers, the underwear. She doesn’t resist him. As he pulls her briefs down, her musk hits him in the face. _Already?_ He smiles, darkly.

“Watch the light, Rey. Listen. Relax.” Her eyes fix on the point of light, and she seems to sink deeper into the pillows, deeper into her own depths. He climbs on to the bed, up to her feet. “You know what happens when you are here with me. You are so deep. And you obey.” Gently he parts her legs and lowers his head down to her pubis. Her lips are red and wet and engorged, like a ripe fruit. Her scent is overwhelming. “Say it, Rey. You are so deep. And you obey.”

And her voice, small, remote: “I…. I’m so deep. And I obey.”

“Good girl.” He opens his lips with his tongue, circling her clitoris, lapping lightly against the edges of her lips, so that her breath catches and her hips rise in reflex. “Say it.”

“I’m so deep. I obey.”

He licks her folds, teasing her clitoris – so sensitive, it seems – drinking her smell, her juices. Plundering.

“I’m so deep. I obey. I’m so deep. I obey.”

The swinging light and the ticking and his mouth on her and the beating of her own blood are now swelling like the sea in her, drowning her, so that she is engulfed in the current and can only merge with it, with his will pulsing in her mind and in her cunt, with her own dark needs, and she cannot tell them apart, she cannot tell where she ends and he begins, and she can only follow, becoming one with the tide, and she doesn’t even realise that she’s practically chanting as he plunges into her:  “Deep… obey… deep… obey… deep… obey…”

She’s mouthing the words frantically now, babbling, begging, her thighs, sticky with her juices, clenching against the sides of his head, her hands clawing into the pillows, her glassy eyes fixated on the light, and beyond that, on his will. His cock is so hard it’s painful.

When she is on the verge, he suddenly withdraws and drives two fingers into her cunt, which immediately spasms around them, then slithers up next to her head. “So deep, Rey,” he whispers in her ear. “So obedient. Such a good girl. Such a filthy little cunt.”

She groans in despair as his words hit every target in her, one after another. Surrender. Humiliation. Lust.

“So needy. So helpless. Such a slut”.

She’s grinding desperately against his fingers now, sweat pouring down her face and chest, her heat blasting against his face.

He hooks his fingers more tightly against her g-spot and with his other hand grabs her face and turns it, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Look at me, Rey. Obey. Cum.”

She comes hard against his hand, her back arching, her head thrown back as she cries out. When she collapses, flushed and panting, he removes his hand, which is coated in her cum, and wipes it on the duvet. _Oh, we’re not remotely done yet, scavenger.  
_

***  
 

As if in a dream – but it’s all as if in a feverish dream, surreal and blurry and it’s so, so hard to think, so hard to understand… – she feels hands moving her, her body shifting, being placed, rearranged, something odd and alien yet inescapable, and burning, burning so…

She is still on the bed, the white duvet soft and yielding under her hands and knees, the arcing light still burning its trail across her gaze, across her mind, the ticking pulling her, bringing her deeper and deeper. On all fours. _Like a dog. Like an animal._ She thinks the words, or speaks them, or hears them – she doesn’t know and it doesn’t matter, it’s all one now, what he says and the words in her mind and the words that she hears a voice which apparently is hers speak.

His hand is on her haunch. Heavy. Possessive. The Master’s hand. “Oh yes, pet,” he laughs softly. “Indeed.” His hand roams up her hips, around her waist, up her back, making her shudder under his touch. “My little bitch. I have half a mind to make you wear a collar and walk you on a leash around the ship. Make you sit at my feet while I work. Sucking my cock under the table during meetings. Or perhaps, making you suck everyone’s cock too. I’m sure Hux would quite like that…”

Her stomach seizes into a knot as he speaks, her cunt clenching, over and over and over.

“Oh yes, little bitch. You are _my_ pet, but a good pet services whomever its Master says. It obeys. And I’m sure that Hux would be _so_ much easier to work with if I let him fuck your face every now and then. Would you like that, bitch? Hmmm? Licking Hux’s balls clean while I watch? Being _a perk of the job_?”

And the tide is pulling her – pulling _it –_ further and further into the depths, the self-loathing, the disgust, the humiliation, burning, burning into the core… He slides into the sodden cunt, easily, starts pumping, gently at first, gradually harder and faster as he speaks. Something moans, somewhere.

He pulls, the waist, the shoulders, the hair. “Being fucked. Over and over and over. Like the bitch you are.” Then his hands move down to the breasts. “Or perhaps a cow would be better. My own little milch-cow. Would you like that? I’ll have my med-droid pump you full of the right drugs, so that you start to lactate – no more pert breasts, they'll grow so large, so engorged, so full of milk, so that everyone stares at you, so that your shirt gets wet all the time, those dark rings under your tits… Would you like that? I think you would…”

His words rolling over and over and over, his dark fantasies, like a dark current tugging, pulling away and down and deep, irresistible, until everything is sunken, gone…

“Or perhaps I’d want your milk for tea. Perhaps I’ll have you milked. Hmm? I’ll have my droids place suction cups on your _udders_ ” – tugging at the nipples – “so that you are sucked dry. A stupid, placid cow, a _heifer_ , browsing all day on all fours on the meadow, doing nothing, thinking of nothing, just waiting to be milked. Perhaps I’ll do it myself” – pulling rhythmically now, one nipple, then the other, the udder, making them swollen, engorged, furiously red – “putting my cup of tea beneath you and milking you every afternoon on the table in the meeting room, with all my officers watching…”

He’s pumping furiously now, hips slamming against buttocks, buttocks rising to meet him, frantically.  He digs his finger into the breasts, clutching, claiming. “And you will be able to do anything about it. Helpless. So completely under my control. _You will do as you are told_ ”. He grips hair, pulls back savagely. “ _Cum_.”

 And everything burns away in the white blaze.

***

 

He tucks her into her narrow bed. She smells clean, like laundry, after the bath he’s given her, after dressing her in a fresh shirt. She looks almost like a child, now, exhausted and peaceful. It is a wonder, how she can look – and feel – so innocent after the darkness he has plunged her into. _A purge._

He leans forward, brings his hand close to her temple to force a deep sleep and ensure that everything is locked in place, and away from her conscious mind. Then kisses her forehead and leaves the room, turning the light off.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one, in which it starts to be clear that this isn't just a one-way street. Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, and kudosing (is that a verb?)!

She notices the marks the following day in the showers – long, red, four of them on each shoulder. Unmistakable.

It can’t have been Kulhum – he only has three fingers on each hand, tipped with suction cups to boot. She tries to remember when Ren could have gripped her like that, but they haven’t trained for quite a while, with him being so busy, and he hardly touches her otherwise, except during sex.

She knows her body, how her skin reacts, out of many years of having to protect herself against the sun, against grazes of rusty metal, against grabbing strangers, and these marks are really recent. Yesterday. _How…?_

She freezes with dread.

***

The awful thing is, the thought that he is doing things that she doesn’t know about – things _to_ her – angers her, of course, but also, despite her best judgement, arouses her. The thought that he is taking decisions out of her hands – decisions over her own body and (more worryingly and more arousingly) her mind – that he is treating her like some sort of object, a _pawn_ in his games, makes her undeniably hot. The thought that he is paying her that much attention.

Which doesn’t mean that she is simply going to stand there and take it just like that. She is lapping up his attention, adapting to his control in ways she would have never thought possible. But she’s still curious, she still wants to _know_. She hasn’t survived all this time in hostile environments just by lying down and accepting things as they come. Even when it comes to her own desires.

***

“Why aren’t you training me in the Force, Master?” she asks him from her kneeling position, when they are both back in his quarters.

“Hmm? What?” he replies absentmindedly while he takes off his cloak.

“The ways of the Force. I have been training hard with Kulhum. But anyone could do that, and better than me. You told me that you would teach me the ways of the Force.”

“Apprentice,” he frowns, sitting down, “those _are_ the ways of the Force. What you are learning, physically, in the training room is connected to it. I have my reasons to do things the way I do. Don’t presume to tell me how to teach you.”

“Yes, but…” He frowns even deeper – those are possibly the two words he most dislikes, coming from her. “Master, I am still unable to control the Force in any meaningful way, other than through our link. And I hardly remember anything about my meditation sessions.”

 _Which is exactly as should be._ “Again, apprentice. You are not the one making the decisions here. You submitted to my training. So be patient. And submit. _Down_.”

The word strikes her like a blow – she isn’t looking at him, but the command comes straight through their Force link and seizes her, almost like a reflex reaction, and her torso sinks into the ground, her forehead to the floor. Prostrate.

She burns, as she always does – in humiliation, in eagerness, in lust – but this time, also, she realises, there is something else – something she can only think of some sort of mental lubrication. As if her mental processes, her conflicted feelings, were being _eased along_ past her usual internal struggle. As if her anger, her fear, her spikiness, were being smoothed down by an invisible hand. Making her more complacent and compliant. More _docile_.

She can’t do much about it, right now – she’s far too in, too carried away, too overwhelmed by his presence in front of her and in her mind – but some part of her files that away to think about, later.

*** 

For the rest of the evening, he trains her gag reflex. Or, rather, how to suppress it.

“That’s it… relax your throat, your muscles…” How he manages to keep giving her instructions in that cool tone of voice while she holds his engorged penis in her mouth, she doesn’t know. “Empty your mind. Think of nothing but this – concentrate on it. Make yourself nothing but a vessel for my cock.”

_So this is what Force meditation is like? Really?_

He obviously catches the drift of her thought, because he chuckles. “ _Everything_ is grist for the mill, apprentice. And in your case, this is the best way to bring you into alignment with the Force. Through me. Through my cock.” He gets hold of her head and pushes himself even deeper into her mouth, brushing against her uvula, so that she automatically starts to retch.

“Calm yourself,” he chides her. “Steady. Relax.”  

His cock feels enormous in her mouth. Filling her. Choking her. There’s no breath coming, she feels, she cannot breathe, she…

She’s panicking now, her body going into flight mode, struggling. _This is wrong this is wrong this is wrong…_ She tries to pull back, breathe, run, but he holds her in place with the Force, paralysing her from the neck down, knotting her arms tightly behind her back. “ _Stay._ ” Like a dog.

Her nose is against his abdomen now, brushing against his soft, dark down, his smell overpowering her. She is completely powerless, held tight in his grip, caught against him, filled with him. “Shhhhhhhh,” he hushes her, his fingers running through her hair, over her scalp. “Breathe through your nose. Feel how deeply, how completely I fill you. Accept my control.” He brings his hands down to her face, almost tenderly. “I won’t allow anything bad to happen to you. Trust me. Surrender to me, Rey.”

 _Trust. Surrender._ She closes her eyes and falls into their link, feeling him holding her, so tightly, so warm. And she lets go, opening up, to his cock, to his heat in her mouth and in her mind. To him.

_Yes._

Her hands drop limply to her sides as he lets go of his Force-hold, and suddenly something in him gives way and he too lets go, and cries out, in victory, in triumph, shooting hotly into her mouth, down her throat – and the Force runs between them and through them like a live wire, a blinding, binding blaze.

It’s so powerful, he is thrown back against the seat of the sofa, thrown almost – it seems – out of his own body. It takes him a few instants to come back to his senses. When he does, Rey is standing over him, looking slightly concerned.

“Are you all right, Master?”

“What? Oh… yes. Yes.” He is still a bit out of it, and doesn’t realise that she’s not kneeling as she should be. He pulls himself up. “I think that will be all for tonight, apprentice. You can go to bed now. Reflect on what you have learnt today.”

“Yes, Master,” she says meekly. But she stays for a second and watches him as he withdraws, slightly shaken, to his room.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren is in a bad mood.
> 
> Thanks for your encouragement and for the wonderful comments and kudos!

_What was_ that _?_

He is standing in the scalding shower, trying to wash the shock away. It’s the first time since that first interrogation, when she turned the tables on him, that he feels so unsettled, so… out of control. And he  _hates_ losing control.

It had all been going so well. His conditioning last night had clearly had its effects, because she slid into a submissive mindset immediately and smoothly, bypassing her usual resistance. He had her under perfect control, in the grip of his Force-hold, and she responded just  _right_ , consciously surrendering and opening up to him –

And then he let go, and it struck, like a bolt out of nowhere. As if his power had gone into her and boomeranged back, catching him unawares. He’s quite certain that it wasn’t anything she did – she was completely surrendered, completely given over to him. And he was overwhelmed. He’s never experienced anything like this in his life.

He turns off the shower and rubs himself vigorously, harshly, even.  _I lost control._ Surely that must be it. He lost his grip, and the Force bounced back, in some way, just when he had lowered his guard. Intolerable. He flings the towel to the wet floor.  _It won’t happen again._

***

They are fighting, again. They are always fighting. About him. He can hear them shout, from his room, then things being hurled, crashing. Then steps, stomping out, leaving. It’s what he always does when things get difficult (and she makes them so very difficult, most of the time), leave. Then he comes back, and he can hear them then, too, as they make up, crashing loudly and violently in very different ways. This time, though, it’s different, he knows with absolute certainty, with a sinking feeling in his stomach.  This time his father won’t be back.

He comes downstairs, hardly able to reach the banister yet, to see his mother weeping, tears of fury.

_This is my fault._

But then, abruptly, it changes. His father  _does_ walk back in, smiling in his cheeky way, with his hairy friend towering behind him. “I came back for you, Ben. I forgot. You’re coming with us. We can’t leave you here like this!”

He glances at his mother in the corner, who’s covering her face with her hands. She’s not looking up. She won’t look at him.

“I can’t leave Mum on her own, Dad.”

“It doesn’t matter, Ben! She’s dead already,” answers his father, cheerily. “We are all dead. It doesn’t matter what we do.”

“But… what about the Force?”

His father sighs and steps aside, with a resigned, disappointed expression. “I always knew it would come to this.” And his uncle comes forward, in his dust-streaked robes, trailing his live lightsabre. Skywalker hands it to him – he can hardly wield it, it’s so huge and angry and he's so little – then opens his robes.

“I’ll show you how to handle the Force, Ben.”

He wakes up screaming, in a cold sweat.

***

“We received intelligence. Finally. Skywalker’s on Crait,” Hux informs him the next morning.

“The mining planet? Why on earth…?”

“Apparently, it’s been a Resistance hideout for quite some time now. We didn’t pay much attention because, frankly, it’s an Outer Rim shithole, with no room to manoeuvre and no strategic value. I’ve sent over troops to start a blockade. They’re trapped there.”

“Good. We’re en route then, I take it?”

“Yes.” Hux smiles at him, his vulpine smile. “But there really is no hurry. The longer we make them wait, the more worn out they will be, and the easier it will be for us to break in. I suggest you take advantage of this time to… inure your, erm, apprentice to the idea of the task she has ahead of her.”

“My apprentice’s state of mind is none of your concern, General,” he answers drily.

“On the contrary. I would say that much depends on that scavenger’s state of mind. And it seems to me that she will be needing some persuading, judging from what she says.” He looks at him with a gleam in his eye. “Do let me know if I can be of any assistance in that respect, Commander. Always happy to help.” And he turns to the control panel.

_What the…?_

***

When she comes back from the training session, he is waiting for her, frowning darkly beneath his mask. “You’ve been talking to Hux?” he hisses.

She stares at him in surprise and indignation. “Yes! He came to see me train and asked me to talk with him in his quarters. I thought he had told you.”

“He took you to  _his quarters_?”

“He probably didn’t want to be seen talking to me in public. It was very brief. I didn’t even finish my drink.”

“ _You had drinks with Hux in his quarters???_ ”

He suddenly grabs her hard by her arm and brings his other hand up to her temple. He goes in roughly this time, he’s so furious, plundering her memories with no care at all for whether it hurts her. Which it does. She feels the memory forcibly surfacing, then being extracted, torn out of her. She is left reeling with the pain, wobbling back into the sofa.

“ _I didn’t fuck him,_ if that’s what you’re so worried about.”

No, he can see that. He can also see, through her eyes, what she didn’t realise, because she doesn’t know the man like he does. Hux, who used to despise her and call her a disgusting desert rat, who couldn’t understand why Ren wouldn’t have her killed after obtaining the map, is interested in her now. He is breathing so hard now that it’s hard to tell whether it’s the mask or his own anger. “I’ll kill you if you so much as touch him.”  _And what I’ll do to him, he’ll wish he was dead._ “And did you enjoy  _talking_ to him? Was his conversation sufficiently  _stimulating_  for you?”

She stares at him in disbelief. He’s jealous. He’s actually jealous. “He wanted to persuade me to kill Luke Skywalker because he thinks it’s important for the First Order. That was it.”

_The fuck that was it._

She blurts out: “Do you really think I have any intentions of having sex with my enemies? It’s bad enough that I…” And stops suddenly. She was going to say:  _it’s bad enough that I have sex with you,_ and he knows.

He stares at her for a long minute. Then steps forward, very close to her, impinging on her personal space, so that she is left staring at his towering bulk, pinning her up against the sofa. “You are fucked by your _owner_ , scavenger, when and how he pleases. Your wishes are irrelevant.”  _Even if I make you cum over and over._ “You’re here  _solely and exclusively_ as my property. You only talk to whomever I say. You only do whatever I say. From now on, if anyone approaches you, you will report it to me  _immediately._ Is that clear?”

She looks down. “Yes.”

He grabs her by the chin, hard, forcing her to look up at the gleaming, inhuman helmet. “Yes  _what_?”

“Yes, Master.”

“I have to go to a meeting now. I’ll be back in two hours. Take a shower and wait for me in the proper position. Don’t do anything else, or I’ll know. You are being punished tonight.”

He lets go of her, practically dropping her to the floor, and leaves.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Punishment. Thanks for the appreciation, as always!

It’s not fair. He knows it’s not fair. He doesn’t care, though. She should have known better, he tries to rationalise, but it does’t really matter. Because he needs to punish her.

He cuts the meeting short after an hour and a half and hurries back to his quarters, still in full regalia of helmet and cloak. To find her sitting on a sofa, very much dressed and reading a book.

His first reaction is a shocked standstill – it really hadn’t occurred to him that she might not obey. Immediately followed by seething anger.

“I gave you orders, scavenger”, he growls.

She puts the book down, stands up. Clearly frightened, but forcing herself to stand up to him. “You didn’t tell me I wasn’t allowed to talk with Hux. I had no way to know. And I never lied or hid it from you. I shouldn’t be punished.”

“You don’t get to decide why or how you are punished. Take off your clothes and crawl over here. _Now._ ”

“No.” The inconceivable syllable hangs in the air between them. Then, less steadily: “I surrendered myself to you as my Master, to be trained in the ways of the Force. But you are treating me like… your possession. Your toy. It’s not right, and it’s not fair.” She blushes and looks down. “Even if I have consented to it.”

And he is suddenly upon her, seizing her by the hair, twisting her arm around her back. “ _Fair?_ ” he hisses _._ “You don’t complain about fairness when I make you cum like a fucking fountain, you _slut_. _Get down on your knees_.”

“ _No_.” She bucks and writhes against him, trying to summon up the Force as she did on Starkiller – she can feel that he’s in turmoil, and he might leave himself open to her attack again. But his fury is far more focused this time, and she has no lightsabre. And he is so, so much stronger than her. She twists and struggles – then, in desperation and anger, thrusts her knee to kick him in the groin. With a lightning reflex, he swats her knee away so that it falls square against his thigh, and she feels how his wrath surges even more. “You can’t keep me like a caged animal in here!” she shouts.

And then he is pulling her up again, by her hair, by her arms, out of his quarters and down the corridors, dragging her along, ignoring her struggling or her cursing or the shocked stares of those they pass. He only stops for a second to mutter an unintelligible order to a technician, who immediately runs off.

Until they finally reach the Knight’s Hall. He bursts into the brightly-lit area, where some ten of his Knights, including Kulhum, are in the middle of a training session, which they stop immediately as he barges in. “You don’t want to be in a cage? Fine. Let’s get you out then.” And hurls her into their midst. “Get hold of her. Kulhum, get the raw bacta cords.”

Two Knights get ahold of her, one by each arm – and have to be helped by a further two as she gathers the Force field around her in an attempt to cast them off. It works, but not strongly enough for four trained males who triple her in size.

She looks in horror as Kulhum brings a large sack. She knows what’s in there. While bacta is used to heal wounds and repair tissues, this is its raw, undiluted form, similar to an acid. Raw bacta cords are sparingly used by the Knights in their training as a very effective way to movitate a trainee’s reflexes – wherever they land, they cause swift, sequel-free, excruciating pain.

Ren pulls a length of cord from the sack and holds it nonchalantly in his gloved hands. “My apprentice here is apparently unhappy that she isn’t being properly trained. So I thought I’d give her a better idea of what training as a Knight of Ren involves.” He looks back and up, and appears to see something that satisfies him. “Turn her around and hold her still.”

The Knights do so. Ren steps up to her and she feels a hard tug at her throat, a ripping, then cold air against her back. Her torn top falls to pieces around her waist, and his footsteps retreat. She turns her head over her shoulder, dry-mouthed with terror, and sees him hand the length of cord to Kulhum with a nod. _No,_ she mouths, begging.

Kulhum looks at her in silence for a second, with what seems like pity. Then raises a powerful arm, throws it back, and lets the ripping cord fall, with extreme accuracy, diagonally across her back.

It’s as if the tip of a white-hot knife were being dragged along her skin. She screams at the sudden, searing, exquisite pain – which is just ceasing to pulse and radiate when another blow lands. And another. And another. And it goes on.

The pain is so intense that all she sees is a white blaze behind her eyes as all the nerves in her body catch fire and burn – she is being consumed, she is being burned alive, her skin flayed, every termination singing in agony –

She hears her own screams, somewhere, beyond her control or her thoughts. Beyond her self. A bare animal.

And then, as sudden as it started, it stops. The hands that restrained her now drop her, and her body – which no longer seems to be hers, doesn’t seem to be anything other than a terrified, burning knot of pain – collapses to the floor.

She stays in a foetal position for what seems like ages, not daring to move, not daring to breathe, not daring to exist. Then the familiar heavy footsteps approach her. “Enough.”

She opens her eyes. The Hall is empty except for the lone huge dark figure looming over her. “I hope this will teach you to accept my discipline better, apprentice.” He crouches by her side, touches a gloved hand to her hair. “Raw bacta causes no lasting damage. Pain by nerve induction.”

His glove moves down her face, to her shoulder, her arms, and as it moves, she feels a warm glow coming over her, like a balm bathing her tortured flesh. The pain retreating, or him?  

“Both,” says the voice from behind the mask, and he keeps moving his hand over her body. She can’t help it, she can’t fight him, she can’t fight his touch, the touch that has brought her such pain and is now bringing her this relief, she can’t think, she can only submit to his touch, fall under and let herself be touched –

He turns her over, gently, and keeps stroking her, her face, her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. The warmth mixes with the embers of the receding pain like a comforting blanket, soothing her, making her melt under his glove. And her thighs seem to open of their own accord to him, her wetness welcoming him, her musk rising to meet him. She’s so lost, so gone in the warmth and the comfort, that she doesn’t even question her reaction.

And then his hands are grasping her by the buttocks, lifting, and her legs stretch out as he enters her in one fell swoop, sliding into her hot wetness, filling her. Stroking rhythmically in and out of her, like a rocking rhythm, soothing, lulling her into the pleasure after the pain.

It’s soft, this time – her entire body feels liquid, water against his solidity, the stone in the flow that shapes the current, which she laps against, over and over and over. Her orgasm, when it comes, is fluid, a warm gushing, a further dissolving, as all her cells rise up and cry out again, and she feels his low cry too against her neck, his own orgasm answering the liquid call of her molten core.

After a while, he draws himself up to kneel next to her, lifts her up in his arms. Then stands still for a moment, looking at something on the other side of the room. As if making a point.

She can hardly lift her head, but she makes the effort and turns to follow his gaze. There, watching impassively from the Viewers’ Gallery, is Hux.

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to everyone for your comments and views. And yes, to make it clear, Kylo Ren is being a complete arsehole.

“We’re stopping in Takodana.”

Hux does not immediately acknowledge Ren’s statement, which has clearly not been issued as a question, but keeps staring at the dark depths of space ahead through the vast lookout at the bridge. His irritation is mounting. Yesterday he was summoned by Ren to an emergency meeting, only to arrive at the Knights’ Hall and witness how he tortured the girl and then proceeded to fuck her silly – mainly, he’s certain, to rub it in his, Hux’s, face. And now he’s behaving, as usual, as though this ship – Hux’s command – were nothing but his own personal pleasure cruise. _I get the point, Ren. You’re the alpha male here, and you’re territorial. Now can we fucking get on with this war business, for a change?_

He deliberately prolongs his silence as much as possible, just to annoy Ren. “Whatever for? Takodana has been secured,” he says at last, without turning to look at him.

“All reports claim so. I need to verify it in person, though. And make sure that the troops are ready for deployment in case we get a local Resistance surge in the sector after we take Crait.”

It does make sense, Hux has to give him that. The capture of Skywalker may trigger unexpected reactions – bring desperate Rebels out of their hideouts in a last-ditch attempt, going out in a blaze of glory. And Takodana, the former pirates’ hub, is ideally positioned to tackle any upsurge swiftly. “I see. How long will it take you?”

“About a week. I will be taking my apprentice with me.”

That makes Hux turn slightly, eyebrow raised. He says, in a neutral tone: “I’m surprised the scavenger’s in a state to travel at all.”

“I don’t damage my property, General.”

“No, only other people’s” _,_ replies Hux, vividly remembering the damage that Ren inflicted on a panel console last time he decided to take his fury out on the equipment. Even though Ren’s face is obscured by his mask, it’s obvious that Hux’s retort angers him. Hux smiles, a tight, smug smirk.

“My apprentice has learnt her lesson,” growls Ren. “Now she needs further training in the Force. Away from any _distractions_.”

Hux shrugs. “The ship can do with a stopover. There are repairs and maintenance tasks to be done.” _And I can do with a few days without your antics, Ren._

Only when Ren has left does he allow himself to remember the pity he felt last night. Or the arousal.

***

She stands back as the droid neatly packs her few belongings. She’s feeling essentially numb today, and not only from the aftereffects of the raw bacta. Somewhere beneath the layers of unfeeling, she realises, she’s really, really angry.

She’s a prisoner. She’s trapped. She’s going to have to kill Skywalker or die herself. She’s given herself to a man who wants to turn her into some twisted thing, something she can’t even begin to fathom. And she can’t escape him, or – to be perfectly honest here – herself, her own desires.

She can’t deal with this right now. So she retreats from her emotions, as she did on Jakku, in isolation, to survive. Keeping them close up tight, in the dark place in her mind. Waiting for the right time to let them loose.

***

Takodana is as green and lush as she remembers. But now there’s no Solo, no Chewie or Finn. And Maz’s castle, inconceivably, has been taken over by a First Order garrison. It’s like when you come back home in a dream, only to find that everyone is a stranger, everything you knew is gone, and you don’t know who you are anymore.

The planet’s only sun is setting, and the shuttle from the mothership has been bumpy, so Ren sends her to her rooms for the night, escorted by two stormtroopers. “We will start tomorrow,” he says, not looking up from the maps he is being shown by his officers.

The stormtroopers lead her through the vaulted stone corridors to a solid wood door, which opens to a large, square, windowless room, with a canopied bed and a huge fireplace. A fire is burning, which she is grateful for, as this is the wet season, and the thick castle walls are damp and cold. Her escorts leave her to herself, positioning themselves – she can hear the sound of their laserguns being propped against their armours – outside her door.

She sets her bag on the floor, sits on the high bed, and, for the first time, despair takes her over. She has never felt so alone in her life, not even on Jakku. And suddenly she is sobbing, deep, full-body, heaving sobs.

“Oh, child.”

The familiar elfin voice, coming from nowhere. _I’m hallucinating. I’ve finally lost my mind._

But there it is, the tiny, wizened figure next to the fireplace, warmly looking at her through its thick goggles.

“Maz…? Maz!” She leaps off the bed and is about to rush to hug her when she realises there is another, taller figure standing next to her. “Finn!”

And she throws herself into their arms, sobbing with joy now, her friends, her family, the people who love her. “How… how…?”

“This is _my_ castle after all, child,” smiles Maz, disentangling herself from Rey’s arms, eventually. “You don’t get to live in a place for a thousand years without knowing every nook and cranny like the back of your hand. Or its secret passages.” And she gestures towards the far corner of the wall, where a slab of stone has swung open to reveal a narrow, dark passage.

“We’re here to rescue you”, says Finn, beaming. “We’ve been tracking all your movements since you were recaptured, and when we heard that Kylo Ren was coming to Takodana with his apprentice, well, we had to act!”

“How are you? How is everyone?” she urges, not daring to let go of his hands, so warm, _Finn’s_ hands. “Where are Rose and Poe?”

Finn’s face drops at this. “On Crait. They flew Luke from Ahch-To, and now they are trapped there with what remains of the Resistance high command.” He holds her hands tightly. “But there’s no time to lose now! We need to get out of here.”

She looks at him, his broad, warm, loving face. Her _friend_. The _goodness_ of him, his unselfishness, makes her want to cry. She gently withdraws her hands from his, and takes a deep breath. “I can’t go.”

“What do you mean you can’t go? Of course you can! There’s a passage leading to a clearing in the forest, and there’s a light flyer waiting for us. We’ll be out of the planet’s orbit before they realise what’s going on.”

She shakes her head. “No. I mean – _I_ can’t. I gave my word I wouldn’t try to escape.”

“You gave your…?” He stares in disbelief. “Who to? Kylo Ren? Rey, for fuck’s sake! What the hell does it matter what you said to that monster?”

Rey doesn’t reply, but can only stare at the floor.

“Rey!!! You did what you had to do to survive! But now you have to leave!” he urges, frantically. “Maz, say something!” But Maz just looks at Rey, lost in thought, and says nothing.

“Rey, for fuck’s sake!!! You don’t have to keep the promises you make to the devil!!!” He looks at her, at her anguished expression, and then his face changes as the realisation dawns on him. “But you don’t think he’s the devil.”

She can’t say anything, she’s so ashamed, so pained, these are her _friends,_ coming to rescue her, coming to take her back to freedom, to the people she loves. But she can’t leave. She can’t. Tears flow silently down her face.

Finn’s face is darkened with frustration and fury. “Maz…” he appeals to her again, but the small humanoid just shakes her head slightly. “Fuck!!!!!” He slams his fist against the stone wall, then angrily, disgustedly, turns around and disappears down the passage into the dark.

She watches in agony as he disappears. Then collapses to a crouch on the floor, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, God…”

She feels Maz’s warm, dry hands on hers, taking them off her face, and the kind, wise eyes look into hers. “He’ll understand. Eventually.”

“I… I just can’t leave”, she sobs, trembling. “I gave him my word.”

Maz nods. “I know. You have chosen a very hard path, child. It doesn’t mean it’s the wrong one.”

“I feel so weak. So lonely.”

“You think you are weak, but you are the strong one. It takes strength to submit. It's not just being passive. Just remember this: you are a giver, and he is a taker. But, ultimately, the taker needs the giver as much as the giver needs him. If not more.” She looks deep into Rey’s eyes, and suddenly she is no longer child-like – for a second Rey can glimpse, in her eyes, all the lives she has seen, all the fires of the many ages she has survived, centuries upon centuries upon centuries. She’s ancient, and she’s sacred. An oracle.

“You will find your strength where you least expect it. Your victory lies in your yielding. Only when you surrender – when you truly surrender – will you save yourself, and him. And the whole galaxy will be saved too.”

Then the moment passes, and the ancient face becomes impishly smiling again. “May the Force be with you, Rey of Jakku. Although it is very clear that it already is.” Then she leans forward and kisses her, once on each cheek. “Be brave and be strong, child. And always remember you are loved.”

She turns, and is gone.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one. In which Ren is not so much of an idiot. Thanks to everyone, as always!

He is woken in the middle of the night by a terrified officer knocking on his door. Who doesn't exactly calm down at the sight of a bleary-eyed Ren and his powerful torso, naked from the waist up.

“Yes.”

“Lord Ren, we… the night patrol has just found the traces of a landing in a clearing near the castle, sir. A light flyer. Undetected. There… seems to be some sort of ancient passageway connecting the clearing to the castle. It has been recently used.”

A mix of fury and panic seizes him. “Used? Who by????”

“We… are not clear about that, sir. We have followed the passage from the clearing. It seems to lead to – your apprentice’s room. We haven’t gone in.” _We daren’t_ written large on his face.

Thrusting the hapless officer aside, he hurtles down corridors and up staircases until he reaches her door, flanked by the two stormtroopers, who immediately stand back as if from a missile.

He bursts in – only to find her huddled at the edge of the huge bed, cocooned up in blankets, as if she had tried to wrap herself in as many protective layers as possible, to comfort herself with as much warmth as she could. She cries out and jerks her head up in fright at the sudden intrusion, wild-eyed, not quite awake.

“You are here,” pants Ren in disbelief.

She swallows. “Yes.”

He looks around the room, sensing – and, knowing what to look for, finds the traces, the distinctive signature of a Force sensitive. A Force sensitive who is _not_ Rey. And recent.

He shuts the door behind him and approaches the bed. “Meditation time, Rey”.

It takes her already somnolent mind very little to sink into the other, similar state. He makes it quick, sliding smoothly into her very recent memories. And witnesses her despair, her loneliness. The miraculous joy when she sees her friends. Her refusal to leave.

He looks at her, stunned, for a second. Then waves his hand next to her temple and sends her back to a deep normal sleep. This will just be a dream she won’t remember.

 _They came for her. And she didn’t escape._  
  


***

“It’s obvious that this garrison’s defences leave much to be desired, seeing what happened last night”. The garrison officers, standing in line in front of him, can barely keep from trembling. Wondering which of them will pay. “I am going on a reconnoitring trip on the field with my apprentice for the next few days. I suggest that by the time I return, all security procedures have been verified and reinforced, and all weak points spotted and removed. Or I will have to do the removing myself.”

And he exits the assembly room. To the sighs of the relieved officers, who can hardly believe their luck.

***

They walk in silence through the thick, misty forests for hours and hours in the constant drizzle, he leading the way, pushing ahead like driven man, not looking back at her, she making efforts to keep up with his long strides and sudden leaps across streams and fallen trunks.

Finally, as the faint sunlight seeping through the fog is fading away, the forest thins away, and they reach the foot of a bare hill. “There,” says Ren, pointing up to what looks like a square boulder high on the hillside.

The boulder turns out to be a stone hut, so rough and bare that it seems to be hewn out of the rocks around it. But it’s solid and roofed and dry, and soon warms up once Ren lights a fire in the primitive hearth. “Take off your clothes,” he says. And, seeing her expression, adds: “To dry. We’ll die of pneumonia if we stay in these soggy clothes any longer.” And leads by example, pulling off his woollen tunic. “Here.” He pulls out a towel from his bag and throws it at Rey.

He told her to pack light, just a change of clothes, which is exactly what she is putting on now, trying to turn away from him as much as possible without it being obvious. He, however, seems to have brought rather more supplies in his huge rucksack, which he carries as though it were a feather – he pulls out two sleeping bags, some blankets, more clothes, assorted army-issue food packets. And a lightsabre which is not his own (he keeps his own sabre hanging from his belt at all times).

He follows her gaze, which instantly fixates on the weapon. “We’ll start with that tomorrow. But now we need to eat and get some sleep.” He opens a food packet and starts to cook something in a pan over the fire. “I only brought porridge. We’ll have to go hunting tomorrow.”

She laps up gratefully the thick, warm, slightly sweet white pap, sitting cross-legged across the hearth from him, wrapped in a blanket. Then she realises that he has polished off his – possibly insufficient, for him – bowl some time ago, and is staring at her in silence.

“Why do you think I am doing this?” he asks.

There is no need to ask what _this_ means. “I am a Force user. You want to use me, “ she answers, flatly.

He nods. “True. But there are other Force users. Not many, but they exist. I would be able to track them down if I set my mind to it. Don’t you wonder why _you_ specifically?”

She sets the empty bowl aside. Might as well tell the truth. What is there left to lose? “Using me turns you on. For whatever reason.”

“Oh, I think you have a fairly good idea of the reason, Rey. I am a master of the Force. I can kill people with a thought. I need to be in control – it’s what has driven me for most of my life, ever since I left the Jedi. I’m used to tearing defences down.” His eyes piercing into hers. “What I had never, ever encountered was someone who needed _so badly_ to have her defences utterly destroyed.”

She blushes in confusion. “That’s a lie. I grew up on my own. I survived in the desert. I _survived._ With no one’s help.”

“And yet you’re desperate to surrender your hard-won strength, scavenger. To just lay arms and rest in someone else’s will. In _my_ will.” He watches as her blush spreads, grows more intense. “You must have been so lonely.”

“I _am_ lonely!” she cries, with sudden fierceness. “What… what you do to me may turn me on, I can’t help that, I can’t help it that I’m sick, that I’m turned on by sick things, by _filth…_ But if you think that being treated like an animal, like a _pet,_ like something that doesn’t even deserve being spoken to, is something I want, you are very, very wrong.” She raises her head and glares at him. “Make no mistake. You think you can manipulate me because you know that I’m aroused by – the asymmetry between us. But it’s not so simple, and it’s not all I desire.”

“What else do you desire?” he asks. Unexpectedly.

 _Love,_ she thinks, but she won’t say it, she won’t give him the satisfaction of mocking her. “I want… your respect. Even if you whip me, because you think I should be punished or because it turns you on or for whatever reason, because I accepted you as my Master and I understand that I must submit. But I’m not _nothing._ I’m not.” And stares at him breathless, heart racing. Afraid of him. Proud.

He is silent for a moment. Then says, softly: “I never thought you were.”

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fighting and hunting. Thanks to everyone, as always!

She wakes up in the morning to the smell of warm porridge, again, and the sight of Ren sitting on a stool by the fire, flaying something. She blinks – _a nightmare?_ – but no, he’s sitting there, skinning what looks like the Takodanan version of a large hare, his hands covered in blood. _And good morning to you._

“I went out early,” he explains, laying the carcass aside. “For lunch. Breakfast?”

She nods mutely, and watches as he washes his hands in a bowl of water and pours her some hot porridge. Amazed at the delicacy with which those huge hands, which can kill with such frigthening ease, carefully wipe the edge of the bowl with a piece of cloth before handing it to her.

***

They stand outside the hut, later, on the sloping ground. The sky is overcast and leaden, as it usually is on this hemisphere, in this season, and below, the forest emerges out of the mist, a  wave lapping against the foot of the hill, dark green against the louring grey. The light is weak and milky, filtered through the ever-present veil of tiny droplets suspended in the air. Rey, the desert dweller, looks out in amazement, never ceasing to be stunned by the sight. _So much water. So much moisture._

“Apprentice.”

He has his own lightsabre in one hand, and is holding the other one out to her. She takes it gingerly – this is only the third time she has touched a lightsabre, and remembers how the two previous ones ended. She sees him blink as the thought clearly also crosses his mind. Then he activates his.

It’s still as terrifying as the first time she encountered it – rough, volatile, furiously red and inflamed, thrumming so violently that it seems about to explode. She knows Jedis build  (built?) their own lightsabres, and Ren’s clearly reflects his state of mind when he made it. So powerful and unstable and dangerous.

So obviously phallic.

He advances towards her, and she activates her own sabre – which is green – as a reflex, genuinely alarmed. And without saying anything at all, he attacks her. Blow upon blow upon blow raining on her, hard, so that she has to hold her own hilt with both hands to hold him back, red sparks flying wildly as they strike her blade. She tries to recede, to find space to parry or manoeuvre, but the ground is sloping, the grass treacherously wet and slippery, and his blows keep coming and coming, with no respite, driving her back. He’s impassive as he strikes and strikes, suddenly a complete stranger gazing coldly at her, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to kill. She feels a cold tongue of fear creep up her body. _He’s not holding back._

“You’re afraid,” he says, between blows. “Fear alone won’t get you anywhere. You need anger.” And turns, bringing his sword lower, towards her waist, so that she is forced to turn her arms and body aside to block it. _So close._

“Remember what you did to me on Starkiller,” he goes on, relentless. “Remember your fury. Your hatred. How you wanted to kill me.”

But she can’t, he’s overpowering her, she’s not a match for his strength, the speed of his blows, she can’t find her footing, her arms are aching, reacting to his blows, not knowing where the next one will come from, and that lethal thrumming so near, so close…

And then, suddenly, her right shoulder burns, and she cries out in pain. Her tunic is torn, and she can smell the burn of her cautherised wound. _He’s cut me_. She is paralysed for a second, clutching her hilt, staring at his expressionless face. _He’s cut me._

He flicks his wrist, and nicks her left sleeve with the tip of his lightsabre, drawing blood again. “You’re so easy to wound. So _weak_.”

And that does it. She hurls herself against him, lightsabre raised in the air, ready to cleave him down the middle. He blocks the blow and parries, but now she’s found her momentum and it’s she who does the attacking, wanting really, really badly to hurt him.

“Draw on the Force, Rey,” he says, after a while. “Gather it. Use it to kill me.”

But hers is purely physical fury – if she could, she would claw his eyes out right now, tear out his throat with her teeth. She wants to wipe that infuriating impassive expression off his face. As if he didn’t know her, as if he had nothing to do with her. _As if she was nothing to him_.

They circle the hut, striking and fending off and parrying and feinting, but even though she is bringing all the energy of her anger and her indignation against him, she’s not going far enough. _I’m going to have to push her._

He withdraws his blade for a moment, stepping back, so that they can both catch their breath, a brief truce. And then he says, still impassive, but with all the coldness and disdain he can inject into his voice: “And you expect me to _respect_ you? You’re worthless. No wonder your parents got rid of you.”

Something like a dark cloud gathers around her, muffling her, so that her sight grows suddenly dim and she can hear her own dark blood throbbing in her head. Her fury is so sudden and so overwhelming that it seems to her that she is going to burst, she can’t hold so much wrath, so much hatred. From somewhere deep in her, the blackness swells and rises like a dark wave, crashing against her consciousness, sweeping her with it, and she attacks him again, but this time not like a frenzied animal but with cold, lethally calculating fury, precise blow upon precise blow.

Whatever is driving her seeks only one thing. _Death._

And then, suddenly, her lightsabre sweeps down across his torso, and a red line seeps through his tunic, like a deadly signature.

She stares at the bleeding gash, its image burning itself on her retina.

Then drops her weapon and runs away.

***

She hurtles into the forest, instinctively seeking cover, like an animal. Her thoughts – if they can be called that – racing, every muscle of her body frantic with the need to _run,_ to escape, to get away _now,_ get away from _herself_ , from that dark thing that took her over.

She crashes into leafy bushes, through the thicket, down muddy slopes, across brooks, stumbling clumsily, never stopping. She’s only been in the forest once before, that other time in Takodana when he captured her. And, she’s certain, he’s hunting her now again. Like that hare.

Eventually she stops, when she thinks she’s sufficiently deep in the forest – she’s been running for what feels like hours – so deep that it’s almost dark, deep in the humid gloom, thick with dew. She crosses a brook and comes across a hollowed tree trunk behind a rock, curtained by bushes, which looks sufficiently concealed, and crouches in there, hiding, catching her breath. Her sides hurt, acid is flowing through her veins. She is sticky with sweat, her body burning like a furnace, now growing rapidly chill and clammy in this dampness.

She huddles in the dark, clutching her knees to her chest, sobbing, and rests her forehead against the moss-encrusted bark, her head throbbing with pain, willing it to go away, willing _everything_ to go away. _What am I doing? What am I becoming?_

 _My apprentice,_ replies his voice in her head, his presence suddenly intruding against her awareness.

She panics again and leaps out of the tree trunk – only to see him across the brook, his sight fixed on her, patiently crouching. The hunter, waiting.

She starts in the opposite direction, hoping against hope to lose herself in the undergrowth, hoping that she can make herself so small that he will lose her somehow – but he’s so fast, she can hear his long strides closing the gap between them in no time at all, breaking through the branches, coming up so close now, so close she can feel his heat upon her... Then drives desperately forward, desperate to avoid his grasp, those bloody hands –

And falls headlong into a leaf-covered gully, and into the dark. 

***  
 

She wakes up to pain. Something hurting, somewhere. Until she realises it’s her own body. And someone is doing something painful to it.

She moans in protest. “No…”

“Shhhhhhh.”

She opens her eyes. She is lying on the floor, in her sleeping bag, and Ren is leaning over her, his hands on her body, doing something. Hurting her.

“No no no no no no…” she mutters weakly, propping herself up on the elbow that doesn’t hurt, trying to draw away. But he holds her down, keeping her close.

“You dislocated your shoulder. I need to set it. It will just be a second.”

He’s taken her tunic off, and she feels the warmth of his hands on her bare skin. _A hunter’s hands._

He looks into her eyes, seeing her fear, and brings his hand to her neck, as if to still her throbbing vein. “This is going to hurt. Hold still.” Then brings both of his hands to her shoulder and abruptly pulls the bone, which cracks into place. She screams as the pain rips through her, then collapses to the floor. And half faints again with the afterpain, with the shock, with the horror of never being able to escape, never being able to escape this suffering…

She is dimly aware that his hands are still on her, still so warm, so heavy. Like that terrible time in the Knights’ Hall, they seem to be glowing with energy against her skin, soothing her, taking away the pain. Healing.

She raises her head a little. “I… I thought the Dark side couldn’t do that.”

He smiles slightly. “It can’t.”

She decides not to ask – she’s so exhausted, so tired of running, of trying to escape, even if it’s in her own mind. _That’s it,_ realises some detached part of her mind, _I’ve been trying to escape all the time. Even though I promised I wouldn’t. I keep trying to get away from him in my head._

“Even though you stay. Yes.”

He’s looking into her eyes now, and she feels his warmth, the warmth of his hands, his eyes, glowing in her, not making the pain completely disappear, but merging with it. A deep, silent throbbing. The blood thrumming in her head, in her throat. Her stomach. Her cunt.

_Oh no, I…_

“Shhhhhhhh,” he hushes her. “Don’t worry, Rey. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.” He brings one of his hands further down and starts rubbing her belly. “Just let go.”

His hand slides slowly, softly down, over her belly, her mound, her lips. Which part – both up and down – with a sigh.

And she just closes her eyes and sinks into his rhythm, into his warmth, into the gentleness of his fingers as they lazily caress her, with no hurry, no agenda, no obligation. Her hips following his hand, the slow, continuous, wet motion, and for an odd moment she thinks that this is how human beings must have got the first animals to trust them.

“Domestication,” he chuckles. “No. You’re human, scavenger.”  She opens her eyes to see him watching her intently, with such intensity. Such _focus._ She would feel selfish, if she weren't feeling so weak.

“Don’t be silly,” he smiles. Then the hunter leans forward and gently, repeatedly, relentlessly, brings his prey to orgasm.  

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More, erm, training. So grateful for all your comments and kudos, as always.

It _does_ feel like a sort of domestication, though. The girl had surrendered to him so spectacularly out of sheer need, out of her own, deeply repressed desires, which had unexpectedly met their match in him. But now he wants her to surrender out of her own free will. It’s one thing to need. It’s another thing to accept – and want – what you need.

And he can’t deny that he is finding the process hugely arousing – the slow, gradual dance, approaching and retreating, circling like the hawk that will eventually come back to the hawker and lower her head to be hooded. Bringing her closer and closer to the realisation that she can’t escape from herself, so she might as well freely choose what is, in a way, preordained. And not only yield to him as her Master. But _want_ him as her Master.  

 _But then it works both ways, too._ The strange thought crosses briefly his mind, but he bats it away.

***

They are eating the stewed sort-of-hare later that evening, listening to the rain outside. Unexpectedly, she lifts her head from her bowl and asks: “Are you going to punish me? For today, I mean.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Were you hoping for that?” He smiles at her blush and sets his spoon down. “No. You didn’t break your word. I know why you escaped. You didn’t do it deliberately – you couldn’t help it.”

“You know?” Slightly piqued.

“Yes.” He takes a spoonful, swallows. “You truly felt that you were going to kill me, and wanted it. And you _liked_ the feeling.” He watches her as she turns pale-faced in the firelight. “That’s why you ran. It horrified you. Being capable of feeling that, and, furthermore, liking it.” He can see how emotions cross her face, the thought of denying it, the pointlessness of it. “That, apprentice, is the Dark Side.”

“I… I don’t want to feel that. Ever again.” Her voice strangled with anguish.

He says nothing. Keeps eating.

Eventually, she raises her voice again to ask. “Why do you hate Skywalker so?”

He looks up at the apparent disconnect. Is she trying to provoke him? No – she is following some thread of internal logic. He sets the bowl and spoon aside. “You have heard of Darth Vader. My grandfather.”

She nods.

“He was probably the most powerful Force user who ever lived. A little boy from a desert planet, much like yours. Anakin. He – was recruited by the Jedi as a young child. He and his mother were both slaves. He was torn away from his mother, because the Jedi _couldn’t be bothered_ to free her too, because to them she was worthless. Dangerous, even. Because, you see, the Jedi believed that attachment, emotion, ties, were to be eliminated. Jedi were not allowed to _love_ , because that would mean less commitment to their cause. They even claimed that Anakin had no father, because the mother of the greatest Jedi who ever lived could not possibly have had such a disgusting, human thing as _sex_.” His hands, she notices, are now balled into angry fists. He goes on. “My grandfather committed the greatest possible sin. He fell in love, with a woman. My grandmother. They married in secret, had children in secret, because they knew that the Jedi would hunt them down like animals if they found about it. Because Jedis were not supposed to be human beings, with desires and needs and loves. Oh no.”

He is so angry, Rey realises, he’s not only talking about his grandfather. “They drove my grandfather practically to insanity, they _tortured_ him, they threatened what he loved, so he turned to the Dark Side and became a Sith. And he lost everything. His mother, his wife, _they saw it fit to take his children away_ , all he had ever loved and all those who had ever loved him. And all because of the _bloody_ _Jedi.”_

He looks up, eyes fierce with a long-sustained rage. “Luke Skywalker is the true heir to the Jedi. If you fall into his hands, he will try to excise all humanity from you. And if you resist him, he will claim you are a monster. He will claim that you have no rights to any human attachment, because you have a higher duty, you are above the concerns of lesser beings. You are _superior_. You are _pure._ And yet, all the time he…” He checks himself, abruptly. “Luke Skywalker is a filthy hypocrite, and has ruined many lives. _That’s_ why I hate him.” He locks eyes with her. “And that’s why you’re going to kill him.”

***

The blindfold is silk-soft against her skin, but completely blocks all light out, leaving her in total darkness. He tightens it around the back of her head, then she feels him take a step back.

“We don’t usually realise how much we rely on sight,” he says from behind her. “Perform the Adanu sequence.”

She moves, without thinking, into the familiar training routine which she has gone over so many times, hundreds if not thousands – the movements of torso and limbs, the twists and balances like a balletic flow, burnt into her muscle-memory. Yet soon after she starts there is an unfamiliar staggering, a foot inaccurately positioned, a sudden loss of orientation after crouching… Weakness. Failure. She tightens, hangs onto the body memory, struggling.

“Let go of your usual references. Don’t think.” He is walking around her, his voice coming from different positions at different times, disorienting her further. “Feel. Let go. Trust.”

She stumbles and falls, over and over again. As if the floor were rising treacherously to trip her up, constantly. As if her own limbs were conspiring against her, the flesh refusing to follow her commands. And his presence around her, circling, looming. She feels nauseous with dizziness, with vertigo. _I’m going to fall._

“Fall. Fall into the dark.”

 _No. No. No._ She grinds her teeth, holding, holding herself together, holding herself back. If only she can control her trembling limbs, get the foot positioned just right, if only she can…

“Stop. Thinking.”

She tries to clear her mind, but can’t escape the turmoil, the fear, the confusion of her own body struggling in the dark, lost.

“Yes. You’re lost. Lose yourself completely. Let go, Rey.”

She suddenly feels his hand, warm against the small of her back. Supporting her. Pushing her. She doesn’t know. She can only give way, yield, and drop to her knees under his hand.

As if sinking into a black well, she loses all sense of herself – there is only his guiding hand, and the dark. And suddenly there it is, something gathering, driving, carrying, and the body which seems so distant now gathers momentum and starts moving, or is moved, turning and kicking and leaping and curving back in a sequence more perfect than any she has ever achieved before.

And then finally she finds herself landing on both feet and one hand on the floor. Panting with the exertion she hadn’t felt.

And his voice, again. Near. “Well done, apprentice.” _With pride?_ “See? It’s just a matter of letting go. Of losing yourself.”

The steps approach her, and again she feels his hands, this time on her shoulders. She moves her hand up to remove the blindfold, but he holds it back, making her keep it on. Then the hands pick her up and lift her, lowering her down again on the floor, on what feels like a sleeping bag. And start removing her clothes.

She starts to react, to resist, to cooperate, she isn’t sure, but he takes her wrists and sets her hands firmly down, alongside the body. Then finishes taking everything off, and she is left lying on her back, completely naked, blind.

She can feel him stand up and back. His gaze on her where she lies, glistening with sweat, open, vulnerable. His eyes burning into her, her skin burning under him. For endless instants. And she is falling again, into the darkness of her body, of her mind, losing her footing, going, going, and she tries to claw her way back, back to perception, to clarity –

“Lose yourself, Rey” comes his voice, suddenly, next to her ear, his warmth suddenly falling upon her, his weight holding her down. “Trust me.” And she cries out in surrender, in release, in relief, as she gives up and lets go of her precarious grasp, and falls into him as he enters her.

 

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quite short, transitional, but, I think, important chapter today. Thanks to everyone, as usual. It does mean a lot to me.

He opens his eyes in the gloom, now only lit by the dying embers, to the sound of the rain outside and her soft, regular breathing close to him. So close, in fact, because she has curled up against him, still naked, seeking his warmth, and covered them both with the sleeping sack.

It’s happened again. Whatever _it_ is. The – overwhelming. The loss of control. As he plunged into her and felt her surrender, something happened with the Force, so powerful, again, that it was as if he too fell into the dark as she closed around him. Lose yourself, he had told her, hoping to make her give up control to him. But he too had lost his sense of self, at that point, overcome by the Force that pierced them both in their coupling, by the white blaze that swallowed him. And, once again, that terrible thing happened. He was helpless. Utterly, completely helpless.

He looks at her small, pale face, so tranquil in her sleep, and for a second feels a stab of fear. Mixed with tenderness. Which is a large part of why he is so afraid.

He carefully grasps her and turns her over, bringing her up even closer, trying not to wake her, and rearranges the sleeping sack properly, then zips it close, so that they are both enclosed in it.

She stirs as he shifts beneath her, looks up at him from under heavy lids. “’Scold.”

“Shhhh. I know. We’ll be warmer now. Go back to sleep.”

“How come you can you Force-heal?” she slurs, as if the thought had been nagging her all day and she only dare say it out loud now that she is half-asleep. “You’re a Sith…”

“I’m not a Sith.” He is silent for a second. “My mother taught me.”

Then cradles her against him as they both fall asleep.

***

They continue like that for days – hunting for food in the morning, training later. And those odd conversations in the evenings. As if they were two different people. As if Ren was actually – well, a normal person. And as if she were not just a nobody from a shithole planet, but someone he is actually interested in. The contrast between his training – in which he pushes her over and over and over, closer and closer every time to some edge which she dreads to think about, relentlessly, mercilessly – and the way in which he fucks her, and even more dramatically, _talks_ with her later is so brutal that she doesn’t even try to understand it. _As if he wore his mask during the day, and took it off at night._

And yet she also knows that it’s not so simple. There’s a continuum, as if they were two sides of the same coin. The hardness and the closeness. The cruelty and the intimacy. As if the sex, and the talking, were an extension of his training, and vice versa, for him. _And for me,_ she has to admit. _What does that say about us?_

And it strikes her like a blow, even as the thought comes to her, that there is suddenly an ‘us’ at all.

***

One of the effects of this more intensive training is that she is beginning to be able to overhear his thoughts more clearly, when he is more relaxed or distracted or not bothering to keep his defences up. When she returns to the hut one morning with some roots she has been digging up in the forest, she can sense his trouble from halfway up the hillside.

“What is it?” she asks, finding him tapping at a comlink with a frown.

“Hux. We need to go back to the ship. Snoke has summoned me.”

She freezes in dread. “Why?”

“How would I know?” He shuts the comlink close in irritation, starts gathering things into his rucksack. “Start packing.”

She doesn’t move. “Why do you answer to that monster? How can you _obey_ him? What hold does he have on you?”

He does not look at her as he stuffs the pan roughly down. “ _This is not the time, scavenger_ ,” he mutters through gritted teeth.

She stares at him in silence for a moment. Then says: “Your father was right, you know.”

“ _What?_ ” He drops the rucksack back on the floor and turns towards her. Dangerously slowly.

“I heard him. On Starkiller. Through you. And he was right. Snoke is using you. And when he is done, he will destroy you, Ben.”

His reaction is automatic, and, she realises as she suffers it, not even voluntary – the furious Force blast that hurls her against the wall is a defensive reaction, an attempt to _push it away,_ push the monstruous, ever-present pain away from him. And he’s immediately upon her, leaning one arm across her throat, hard, choking her, pressing her down against the floor, his face darkened with a fury which she has never seen in him before. “ _Don’t. Say. That. Name.”_

And then he sees her face, bravely holding his gaze, hiding her fear, and softens. Allows his arm to drop to the side and falls back to a crouch, releasing her. He is trembling slightly, she notices. With the remains of his wrath, which now she can sense quite clearly is a mix of terrible guilt and self-loathing and, yes, fear.

And then she realises. _He’s afraid for me._

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here comes Snoke (and Hux, again). Thanks for all your comments and kudos! Hugely welcome, always.

In the shuttle back to the ship, he changes into his most formal, all-black clothes and cloak, and keeps his helmet close to him at all times. He is constantly tense, now, and hardly speaks to her. She’s unable to sense his thoughts, so strong are his defences. But his concern is palpable.

“What is it like?” she asks eventually, tentatively. “Audiences with Snoke, I mean.”

He is silent for a moment. Then says, levelly: “He reams us. Hux and me. Periodically.”

“Reams you?”

“Opens our minds wide. A sort of mental dilation. So he can get at everything he wants to get. So he can see everything.” He looks at his gloved hands. “It’s… painful.”

She gets a sudden image from him, a memory of a feeling. Of agonising pain. Of violation. Something which she can only describe as having one’s mind violently and unwillingly sodomised. Then the image disappears, and she realises how feverishly he is building up mental walls, setting up defences in preparation, even as they speak.

He’s walking into a chamber with possibly the most skilled mind reader in the galaxy, and he is trying to hide her – or his feelings for her – from him.

 _He needs something to throw at Snoke,_ she thinks.

“I will kill Skywalker.”

He looks up in surprise.

“If he is the person you say he is, I will kill him.” _But I will need serious proof of that. And even then…_

He stares at her, wide-eyed, for a second. Now he has a memory – a recent memory – on which Snoke can focus and gloat and be diverted from what he is trying to conceal. She sees Ren’s relief, his realisation. His gratitude.

He nods, slightly. “Good.”

***

They are greeted at the hangar by Hux, who is even paler than usual, dressed as formally as Ren, and clearly as worried. “Commander.”

“General.”

For once, they are bound in an odd sort of comradeship by the joint ordeal ahead, and seem to take refuge in an increased formality of address, the reassurance of hierarchies.

“The Supreme Leader commanded that we appear before him as soon as you arrived. Together.” He glances at Rey. “Your presence is not required this time.”

Ren takes a visible deep breath - in relief, in preparation. “Very well. Wait in my quarters, apprentice.” He gestures for two stormtroopers to escort her. “I’ll see you later.”

She looks at him, hiding her anguish, then at Hux. And, to her own surprise, feels a pang of pity for him too. “I… hope it goes well. For both of you.”

Both men blink, slightly taken aback, as she is led away to her own ordeal by waiting.  
 

***

The hours pass, two, three, four, and evening turns into night. She eats something, tries to read, takes a bath, tries to read again. But nothing will do, nothing will take her mind away from the awful, circling thoughts. Her Force link with Ren is completely mute now, as if he had disappeared from the face of the galaxy. Which may well be the case. The consequences for her would be catastrophic – she is fully aware that Ren is all that is keeping her alive now – but she finds that she cannot really worry about that, about her own survival. She’s worried about _him._ In the best-case scenario, he is being tortured by Snoke right now. In the worst-case scenario…

Unbearable.

She decides to run a bath, not for her again, but for him when ( _not if_ ) he returns – the self-regulating tub will keep the water hot, and, for some reason, she feels that a semblance of normality, of domesticity, will be the best way to welcome him. To make him feel that he is, in some way, back home.

With her.

She pushes aside the disconcerting thought, and the tub is halfway full when she hears the door hiss open. She runs out to the living room –

“Oh, God.”

He’s so battered and bruised, he looks as though he has been hurled down several flights of stairs repeatedly, or bashed against walls, or with hammers. His dark clothes are torn and rent in several parts – he seems to have lost his cloak somewhere, although he is clinging onto his helmet in a way that reminds her, oddly, of a child seeking comfort in a favourite toy. All that she can read off him is the constant, dull throbbing of the aftershock – _pain pain pain pain pain._

He drops the helmet and steps forward, and it’s clear that he’s about to collapse. She hurries forward to support him as his legs give way, and almost falls to the floor herself under his weight. He’s babbling, as if he desperately wanted to tell her something but his mind and his body just weren’t up to the task.  

Somehow they manage to reach his room, and she starts to take his bloodied clothes off, murmuring what she hopes are reassuring nothings: “Shhh… it’s all right… it’s all right.. it’s over now… here… let me take that off…”

She guides him carefully into the hot tub, quickly peels off her own clothes, and slides in behind him, holding him in her arms as she sits against the curved surface. And his body seems to suddenly dissolve in the water, in the warm water holding him, in her supporting arms. She takes a little foam and starts to gently rub his damaged flesh, washing the sweat and blood and congealing clots away. He moans in pain as she runs over the swelling, the weals, the patches where the skin has been torn off. “Shhh… it’s all right… it’s all right.”

She brushes against his mind, which is hardly aware, and feels the rawness, the ache, after his thoughts, his very self, have been painfully forced open and distended and exposed. His outer defences are now completely non-existent, and she realises, with a start, that she is witnessing the very strangest of sights – Kylo Ren in a state of almost complete helplessness.

The immediate memories are there, glowing painfully against the backdrop of his mind. Walking into the chamber – the Amplification Chamber? – with Hux, now brothers in their shared, silent terror. Removing their outer insignia, cloak and helmet, gallons, emblems, all marks of rank, so that they are stripped of any power or position, and are left as mere servants, slaves, of the creature that looms as a huge hologram before and over them. Kneeling. Not enough. Prostrating themselves.

Hux was first. She hears, in Ren’s memories, the general’s screams as the creature’s probe spears him, twisting his whole body into a knotted cord of tortured flesh and agony. Sees the creature gloat as he extracts Hux’s innermost thoughts, the most shameful he can find, and projects them, cackling and mocking, for Ren to see too, knowing that the humiliation will be increased manifold, prolonged to the period after, by their being betrayed to the other man. She feels Ren’s horror as he watches, his mouth dry, his heart thumping wildly within his chest, his sweat blooming in his armpits and the palms of his hands, fully aware that he is next.

And he is.

She pulls out, overwhelmed, when she glimpses his own screams, his own torture, the awful, vomit-inducing feeling of having that creature’s evil, foetid mind inside his own. His pain – the horrific, sickening, endless pain. His begging for death.

And yet, astonishingly, he held out – she feels, caressing his mind, trying to comfort him, the glaring absences, what is _not there._ What he has managed to conceal, so deep in the recesses of his mind that the monster has not managed to pull it out, even when Ren was ready to die. She feels, because she knows what to look for, depths within the depths, hidden structures. His secret self, so deeply concealed that often it is lost even to him. What the creature suspects, but has been unable to get at. What the creature wants to destroy.

And she sees the memory she gave him, the bone which Snoke immediately seized on, jeering in self-satisfaction. She’s bought them some time, it seems.

He is stirring more, now that the shock is receding and the pain of the damages - and possibly of awareness - is beginning to settle and become stronger. Again, she doesn’t know how, but pulls him out of the tub and into his bed, then finds an analgesic hyponeedle in a drawer in the bathroom and jabs him in the arm.

Then brings her hand up to his temple – _Can I do this? –_ and sends him into a Force sleep.

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another plot-moving chapter, with a teeny bit of smut thrown in at the end. Thanks to everyone!

She spends the next hours by his side, watching him, as he tosses and turns in a half-conscious state. He is burning, and his fever doesn’t seem to be subsiding. She checks the time, eventually, and decides that, even though it’s night time and half the ship is probably asleep, she needs to do something about it.

She steps out of Ren’s quarters, to the perplexity of the two stormtroopers posted outside, who are clearly unsure of what to do. “Lord Ren is unwell”, she says, in the most commanding tone she can muster. “He needs help. Take me to General Hux’s quarters.” After all, he’s the only other person she knows on this ship, and, even though he’s probably in as bad a state as Ren, he’ll no doubt be surrounded by a competent medical team.

The stormtroopers look at each other for a second, then seem to silently decide that this is the most low-risk option, and do what she says.

***

She presses the keypad equivalent of a doorbell on Hux’s door. And is surprised when, after a few minutes insisting, it is opened not by a member of the medical team, but by the man himself. Admittedly rather heavily bruised and concussed, but apparently otherwise intact, though bleary – she has clearly woken him up. He looks at her in surprise, but doesn’t lose his compusure. “Is anything the matter?”

“Lord Ren is unwell,” she repeats. “He is running a very high fever. I think he needs medical assistance, urgently.”

“Of course,” murmurs Hux. He gestures for her to come into his rooms, and turns to a comlink, giving the order that a medical team go immediately to Ren’s quarters.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” she apologises. “I was worried.”

“Yes. I can see that.” He looks at her oddly. “I thought Ren was all right, after – obviously not. But it’s not really surprising. He was interrogated much more severely than me. The Supreme Leader seemed quite intent on extracting something specific from him.”

She holds his gaze in silence. Eventually, he smiles, tightly. “I am glad you reconsidered your position regarding your upcoming – assignment.”

Still she says nothing. Although her reservations, her scruples are clear from her expression. He goes on. “I told you that you should learn more about Commander Ren’s background to make a proper decision. Perhaps this might be a suitable time. It is my understanding that Force users are unable to get useful readings from sleeping people, because dreams are so confusing. But altered states of consciousness are a different matter.”

She stares at him. Is he suggesting that she probe Ren’s thoughts now that he is delirious?

Yes, apparently he is.

“I… thank you, General. I think I should go back to Lord Ren’s quarters.”

“Yes, I think you should.” But, as she turns to leave, he asks: “Are you all right? Were you all right on Takodana?”

She looks at him in some perplexity. “Yes, thank you, why…?”

He holds her gaze, steadily. “I saw what he did to you in the Knights’ Hall, just because he wanted to make a point with me. That was unwarranted, and gratuitous. I may be a strict man, but I try to be just. And that was unjust.”

She looks at the floor, suddenly flushed at the memory. At the thought that saw her like that, being…

And he is right. She blushes, ashamed on Ren’s behalf, because Hux is right.

He sees her discomfort, nods curtly to end the conversation. “I’ll see you later, then.” And dismisses - or releases - her.

***

The medical team explain to her that his fever is caused by the start of an infection in one, or several, of his wounds. (They don’t say, but they don’t need to say, that these aren’t exactly ordinary wounds). They have applied bacta to the wounds and dosed him with antibiotics for good measure, but it’s likely that he’ll remain half-conscious until the fever runs its course over the next few hours. They suggest that she keep an eye on him and call them again if she needs to, although it’s quite clear that they don’t envy her the task, and are in no hurry to return any time soon. Even a supine, comatose Lord Ren is still Ren the Jedi Killer.

She sits by his side on the bed, placing her hand on his temple, feeling the throbbing, the heat on his brow. She caresses him softly, wishing he had taken the time to teach her how to Force-heal. Then takes a deep breath, and goes in.

When she emerges, after what seems like ages, she is certain of one thing.

She is going to kill Skywalker.

 

***

He wakes up so exhausted that he wonders whether he’s been sleeping at all. But apparently he has. As he stirs, Rey walks into the bedroom, no doubt alerted to the movements in his emerging awareness. Smiling warily. With concern, with fear?

“Apprentice.”

“Master. How are you feeling?”

“Like complete crap. How long have I been out?”

“Almost twenty-four hours. You had a fever.”

“Oh.”

He tries to sit up in his bed, but pain pierces him. “The doctors said that you should be fine in couple of days, but you need to rest so that those wounds can heal properly. They are quite nasty.”

 _I bet._ He looks at her, at her obvious concern. There is something weighing quite heavily on her mind, but in this weakened state, he is finding it hard to even compose his thoughts, let alone enter someone else’s head. “The… audience with the Supreme Leader was fine. You don’t have to worry about that now.”

She tightens her jaw, obviously biting back her opinion of the Supreme Leader. “This is ‘fine’?”

“Yes. This is fine. Come here.” He gestures for her to approach the side of the bed. “You were worried.” _You still are._

“Yes.”

“It’s all right.” He languidly stretches out an arm and places his hand on her crotch. Gently caresses through the cloth. “You did well on Takodana. I am pleased with you”.

She swallows at this, and he can feel how her cunt clenches slightly, a brief spasm, and the fabric starts to become moist under his fingers. “Good girl.” He sighs. “I’m completely wrecked right now. But today you’re allowed to go back to your room and masturbate as much as you like.”

“Allowed?” she breathes.

He smiles. “Not really. Commanded, actually. Later, I will want to see what you have been thinking about while you touched yourself.” She groans slightly, in embarrassment, in arousal. “Off you go now.”

He follows her with his gaze as she walks out. Something _is_ the matter with her – there is a hard knot in her, there, which she’s obviously trying to smooth over. But he’ll deal with that later. And he sinks into the pillows again.

 

 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before everyone kills me, please remember that Kylo Ren is a BLOODY CONTROL FREAK. And he's freaking out.
> 
> But I will bring balance to the Force, I promise. Eventually. 
> 
> Thanks for each and every comment and kudos - they mean a lot to me.

She tries to, but it really won’t do. If he’s not there, she’s as dry as a bone, worried that he’ll find out – and, knowing him, he _will find out –_ about either one of her transgressions: either her going to Hux for help, or her penetrating his memories (and _those_ memories specifically) while he was incapacitated. And he’s on to her: she could see it in his eyes, that he knew there was something wrong.

Time for damage control, she guesses.

She waits until he is back on his feet and moving about, then orders lunch from the droids. When they bring it, she takes the tray back in and places it on the long table in the living room. “Master,” she calls him, as meekly as she is capable of. “I thought you’d want to eat something?”

“Actually, yes.” He limps out of the corridor and sits at the table, supporting himself on Rey. “I’m ravenous. Which I suppose is a good sign.” He looks at the expression on her face. “What’s the matter, apprentice?”

She takes a deep breath. _Might as well get it over with._ “Master… there is… I have something to tell you.”

His expression instantly turns serious. “Yes, I thought there might be. What is it?”

If she tells him that she went to Hux, he’ll be mad. If she tells him that now she knows about Skywalker, about _that…_ Even after seeing him in his rages, she can’t even begin to imagine how he will react.

Hux it is. “I… You told me that I should report to you any conversations I had with anyone on this ship, Master.”

“So I did.” His voice dangerously quiet.

“When you were so ill, I… I got frightened. I didn’t know what to do, you were burning up with fever. I needed to get you help.” Fists clenched. “I went to General Hux for help.”

“ _You did what?_ ”

It’s visible, how fury seizes him, even while convalescent: he straightens up in his chair so that, even sitting, he seems threateningly looming, his face darkened with rage. She feels his mental probe piercing her thoughts, painfully, zeroing in on the memory of that night. On her feelings.

“Why on earth did you go to Hux? Why didn’t you call a med droid, or tell the stormtroopers? You wanted to _see him,_ didn’t you? Him _specifically_ ”, he spits, the blast of his jealousy and rage hitting her like a shockwave. And also, she realises, his shame – he had hidden how bad his wounds were, how weak he was, and now Hux knows.

She recoils in indignation. “I was terrified! The crew on this ship hate me and think I’m a Rebel whore! They might even have thought that _I_ had hurt you! Hux is the only person with authority I know on this ship!”

“You wanted to see him! That’s why you went to his quarters! In the middle of the night!”

“ _YES!!! Yes, I did!”_ she shouts back. And it is true, she realises: she did want to see Hux. Although not – not remotely – in the way Ren fears.

And he senses her unspoken feeling: that Hux is the only one in this place she can trust not to hurt her, at least so far. And – even worse – she was worried about him, too. It drives Ren insane with rage. He moves forward to seize her, to Force-choke her, but she’s faster and he’s weakened, and she manages to leap away and throw his choke off.

Which only enrages him further, like a maddened bull charging. The dark Force gathers around him, like a huge black wave, then crests and crashes on her.

“ _FUCK YOU!!!!!!!_ ” She’s suddenly so, so furious – before his disbelieving eyes, she rebounds his blast, incandescent with rage, and throws it back at him, and follows with several objects from around the room – a pillow, a book, a lamp – , which she hurls at his head, without even thinking. “ _FUCK YOU, BEN SOLO!!!!!!! I SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU TO DIE!”_

He blanches at this, as if all the blood had left his body. She sees, for a split second, panic in his eyes – panic at his weakness, _he’s losing control, he’s losing her, she hates him, he’s losing her, she prefers Hux, he can’t allow it, it’s intolerable, he can’t allow her to go, he can’t lose her…_

And _that_ name.

The combination is lethal. He rises from his chair, his full height towering over her, ignoring his pain, his damaged ankle, and for a second she is afraid that this is it, this time she has gone too far. But he leans over the table and picks up the comlink. Never taking his eyes off her.

“Captain Phasma. Expect me in the hull in five minutes, with my prisoner. Prepare a conditioning chamber.”

As her blood runs cold with fear, a detached part of her mind is at least relieved that Ren overlooked _that_ part of her conversation with Hux, and wonders just how much worse it would have been if he had found out about Skywalker.

 

***

So this is the place Finn had told her about, when he talked about his life as a stormtrooper. The place where people were sent to when they were found to be defective, and returned… _changed._ If they returned at all. The place that pushed Finn to defect, when he heard Phasma arrange for him to be sent here.

It’s eerily quiet down here, an isolated space deep in the bowels of the ship, away from the noise and bustle of everyday life, from normality. The underworld. And it seems deserted, except for a few blank-faced technicians lit by the glare of screens. Until she peers through the smoky glass windows of the closed, dark cubicles as they pass, and glimpses the naked human forms, tied down, reclining, writhing, curled into a foetal position. The machines.

He doesn’t talk to her, or even look at her, limping wilfully ahead of the six stormtroopers that flank her. Finally they reach a door to a small, white space. Next to the door is standing the tallest woman Rey has seen in her life, even taller than Ren, with a shock of short white-blond hair and ice-blue eyes. She smiles when she sees them, cold-eyed and predatory. A shark's smile.

“Lord Ren.”

Ren makes a gesture with his head, and two of the stormtroopers grab hold of her and bring her into the small, white room, where something similar to a medical examination chair, or the contraption in which Ren first interrogated her, sits in the bright glare of the overhead light. Ren nods, and the stormtroopers tear off all her clothes and strap her down.

The machine is in the corner, quietly sinister, its screens and lights blinking discreetly. Some sort of modified version of a stormtrooper’s helmet is lying on the floor nearby. Ren approaches the machine, self-identifies with his palm, and starts to quickly tap data into it, setting some very specific parameters. Then he turns to Phasma.

“Do _not_ override these settings. Otherwise, apply program 17.”

The tall woman lifts an eyebrow. “That’s an old one, my lord. From the old Empire. I believe it was the program used to condition Emperor Palpatine’s concubines.”

Ren looks at Rey, his face impassive. “Exactly.”

Phasma smiles again, even more hungrily. “Very good, my lord. Shall I – apply myself personally to the task?”

He seems to consider it for a moment. “No. Perhaps later. In any case, I want to be present when you do.” Sex between two women, under his supervision, with no other cocks threatening his dominance, never having bothered him _at all._

“I’ll be back later. Let me know when the process reaches the critical stage.” Then takes a last glance at Rey and leaves with his stormtroopers.

Leaving her alone with the smiling, hungry shark.

 

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, because I just couldn't leave it like that.

He doesn’t feel like returning to his rooms, so despite his aching everything, goes up to the bridge and slumps in a chair, watching space.

Eventually, of course, Hux has to come and interrupt his seething.

“I need Captain Phasma _now_ , but they tell me she is doing something for you?”

“Yes. She’s in the conditioning area. Supervising a procedure.”

Hux raises an eyebrow. “I was unaware that there had been any disciplinary proceedings lately”.

“There haven’t been any”.

Hux looks at him in silence, realising. Digesting. Then says: “So let me get this straight. The girl could have escaped with the Resistance but stayed on because she had given you her word. Then she sought my help because she was worried about you, and told you about it, even though she knew full well you’d be furious and you’d punish her because of your ridiculous, irrational jealousy. And you repay her by sending her for conditioning. By flattening her mind.” He stares at Ren stonily. “ _What kind of an imbecile are you?_ ”

 _I’m not flattening her mind,_ he thinks desperately, _I’m ensuring she doesn’t leave me._

And then: _A huge one._

He gets up and hurries down back to the hull.

***

He finds Phasma outside the cubicle, in what looks like a pretty foul mood – and that’s saying quite something, by her standards. “Ah, Lord Ren. Just in time. The critical stage will be starting soon – although it will be quite unnecessary, as far as I can tell.”

He glances through the observation windows. Rey is on all fours, on the floor, the helmet covering her features, being fucked in both orifices simultaneously by the machines. And apparently, having one orgasm after another.

“You applied the protocol I specified?” he urges.

“As per your instructions. The usual drug dosage, upped. Her intelligence and initiative remain untouched, as you insisted. Submissiveness, loyalty, and sexual compliance – well, they were already there to begin with. If anything, some sexual inhibitions have been lifted – basically because she was so inexperienced. But, to be perfectly honest, Lord Ren, all this –,” she gestures vaguely in Rey’s direction, “is redundant. The girl is a flaming submissive – quite delicious, I am sure –, and she was already utterly devoted to you. She would have died for you.” And she hasn’t even got to lick her, worse luck. She seems mightily offended at having been made to work _for nothing._

He stares at Phasma, dumbfounded. “Erm, thank you, Captain Phasma. I believe General Hux is in need of you. You may go – I’ll take it from here.”

She nods and turns, but, as she leaves, he can hear her harrumph quite loudly in annoyance.

He turns to the glass, and looks at what he’s done.

***

 

She’s lying curled up on the floor, naked and panting, wet with her own sweat and cum. He looks at the screen – she is now entering the attachment stage. The memories.

He crouches by her side and carefully removes her helmet. She blinks in the sudden glare, her eyes almost all-black, her pupils hugely dilated by the drugs. He holds her in his arms, brushing against her feverish thoughts. _Where are you?_

Back in the desert, it seems. He sees the huge dune, feels the biting wind like sandpaper against the face. The thirst. The hunger. He sees the tent against the wreck.

_This is where they left me._

And then they come, the men. And she is crouching in a corner, a little girl at first, watching, then the young girl standing up to them, surviving among them, proving she is cleverer than them, than all of them. Stronger. And always alone. Always, always hungering.

And then she is alone in her own nest, hugging herself for warmth. For contact. No other warmth, no other touch.

Someone comes in, parting the curtains.

 _Not a memory anymore._ Or perhaps it is.

Ren. In full regalia. The masked monster come for her. The torturer and the rescuer.

 _You need this,_ says the other-Ren. _You need me to do this to you. This is what you are._

In his arms, Rey writhes desperately against him, caught in the feverish delirium. So wet, she’s soaking his trousers.

_You need me to purge you. To control you. To find you._

_Yes_ , she mouths, _yes yes please please please I beg you I beg you please…_

The other-Ren takes off his mask and looks at her. Sees her – the first time anyone has ever _seen_ her. Then leans forward and holds her in his arms –

_To hold you._

– and he holds her as she breaks and sobs against him, rocking her, murmuring in her ear: _I’m holding you, I’m here, I’m holding you, Rey, you’re safe, you’re safe…_

And then it passes, and she is lying in his arms, shivering, as the drug slowly recedes, the blackness shrinks in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, unsure of whether she can hear him. “I’m so, so sorry.”

But she looks up at him, her gaze still unfocused, struggling through the daze. “I love you.” And then, groggily, after his shocked silence: _“But you’re a fucking idiot._ ”

 

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - crazy days. Here's a short update, before we get back into the swing of things and the meatier stuff. Thanks to everyone for continuing to read and comment!

For the first time in he can’t even think how long, Kylo Ren, Jedi Killer, Commander of the First Order, Master of the Knights of Ren, has no idea what the fuck to do now. After leaving Rey in his quarters, in the care of his droids, he basically wanders around the ship in a daze until Hux spots him. Who has enough sense to engage him in a conversation exclusively about work.

***

She comes to feeling rather sore in – interesting places. Then it all comes back to her. _Fuck, but that was… different._

She gets out of bed, wanders into the empty living room, and gets dressed in her room. Then calls a droid: “Could you please tell Lord Ren that I’m up?” Having absolutely no idea what she is to do now.

She feels… confident, oddly enough. Strong. She had panicked when Ren sent her for conditioning, of course, when it looked like that woman was going to rape her. She had fought and thrashed wildly when the helmet was placed on her head, fearing what it would do to her, what sort of less-than-a-person creature it would turn her into – while being also acutely aware that she was becoming aroused, entirely against her judgement and will, by the whole process.

And yet it was – cathartic. Even before Ren intervened. Being forced to undergo so intensely, in such minute detail, all her traumas and fantasies had been strangely liberating. She smirks to herself at the irony that something intended as an instrument of torture by the First Order should have become, for her, a sort of – well, therapy.

And those positions. Really, _those positions_.

She is also rather sure that her telling Ren the truth that she loves him (qualified by the equally true statement that he is an idiot) now has him completely on the back foot. Avoiding her, no doubt, as he will be so uncertain about how she will feel, what she will do or say. And Kylo Ren _really_ dislikes uncertainty.

_Good._

***

He receives the droid’s message while discussing the upcoming attack on Crait with Hux. He stares at the comlink and his face as he looks up remembers Hux vividly of a rabbit about to be run over.

“Everything all right, Commander?” he asks, knowing perfectly well what the message is about.

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Erm.” He grips at the back of the chair in front of him, looks up, down, around him, as if looking for an exit, or for someone or something to turn up, or for God knows what. Hux can hardly suppress his smile, enormously amused by the sight he would have sworn he would never see in his life – Kylo Ren _at a loss what to do._

“Perhaps you might want to go and check on the scavenger?” he suggests breezily. “After all, if she is going to fulfil the Supreme Leader’s orders, she will need some previous instruction, I assume.”

“Yes,” answers Ren. Something troubling crosses his mind. Uncertainty. “The… Supreme Leader is always wise. There is no doubt about that.”

Hux looks at him oddly. “He is.” He waits for a second too long. “There is no doubt.”

They stare at each other in silence, wordlessly gauging each other’s secret thoughts. _Does he think what I think he thinks? Is this a trap? Dare I say…?_

Then Ren nods and turns to leave. To both men’s temporary relief.

***

He has decided to behave as if nothing had happened. _Best course of action._ Hoping she will go along with it. _And pretend that I didn’t try to fry her brains after saving my life._

But as soon as he sees her, sitting on the carpet against the sofa, reading a book, looking so pale and small, he forgets all his intentions and blurts out again: “I’m so sorry.”

She looks up and smiles. And it’s as if her smile lights up the entire room.

_Relief. Huge relief._

“I should make you pay for that, you know _._ ”

_What?_

She gets up and starts walking towards him, her smile now smaller and lopsided. Canny. She places her hands on his chest and looks up at him. “I said I. Should. Make. You. Pay.”

He gawps at her, completely thrown off his balance. He was expecting tears, reproach, fear, hatred, resistance, not this –

 _What is come over her?_ And _She is touching me? Without my permission? What?_

And yet he hears his own voice say, tantalised: “Make me pay how?”

Her smile widens. “Oh, I’m sure I can think of ways in which you can… satisfy your debt.” She drops her voice, so that he has to lean forward to hear her. “But, to be perfectly honest – and this doesn’t absolve you in the least, mind you –  I can’t say that the… experience was entirely pointless _._ ”

“How do you mean?”

Her smile is now decidedly wicked. She presses herself against him, and suddenly Phasma’s words – _we have lifted some sexual inhibitions –_ echo in his mind. He feels his mouth go dry. “I think you know perfectly well what I mean, _Master._ You wanted to have me trained as an Imperial concubine, after all. Have me conditioned as a brainwashed sex slave. A _highly skilled_ brainwashed sex slave.”

His erection is so sudden and so hard that it’s painful. “And you know what, Master?” He shakes his head mutely, unable to utter a sound.

She stands a-tiptoe, bringing her mouth next to his leaning ear. Whispers. “ _I liked it._ ”

That’s it. Darkness fills his head like a roar. He seizes her by the buttocks, lifts her, pulling her against his chest – hard against his hardness – and takes her to the bedroom.

 

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very brief chapter of smutty smuttiness, but not, I think, completely gratuitous.

He collapses onto the bed on his back, with her on top, still clinging, kissing so hard, so desperately, that he forgets himself, and finally has to come up for breath, gasping. She is looking down at him, still wearing that wicked, skewed smile. “Just lie back, _Master._ Let me do all the work,” she says, and _slithers_ down his torso, stroking against his tunic all the way down, until she reaches the fly of his trousers. Which she proceeds to unfasten, this time with uncannily competent, smooth ease. “Oh,” she says, in delighted faux surprise, at the sight in front of her.

He obscurely feels that he should be taking the lead here, somehow, but she seems so… enthusiastic, aggressive even, that he just allows her to to take the initiative.

Also, it feels decidedly _good._

She takes his cock in her mouth, starts coating it in her saliva, sliding up and down – and suddenly, she is doing something that feels… that feels…

 _What the hell…???_ He tries to prop himself up on his elbows to see what she is doing, but with one hand she pushes him back from the abdomen, and suddenly he has no strength to resist and can only fall into the feeling – as if she were twirling and squeezing and sucking and licking and drawing him and and _oh god yes_ everything just at the right time, at the right pace, taking him so deep, so good, just so so good…

And then her mouth withdraws, replaced by her fingers, and she starts kissing the inside of his thighs, holding, caressing, stroking. Moves down to his balls. His perineum. Doing that… swirling, stroking thing with her tongue. And he thinks he’s going to die from the pleasure.

And then she brings her hands down, places his thighs on her shoulders, opens his cheeks, and leans in with her tongue, probing.

 _“Woman!!!”_ he cries out in shock.

She completely ignores him and continues to plunge in, licking and stroking relentlessly, her hands holding him wide open. Now the Master of the Knights of Ren isn’t exactly sexually inexperienced – he has had his share of more or less brief affairs with women, mainly with First Order officers who would then be conveniently (for both parties) reassigned elsewhere, occasional minor power players attracted to his aura of danger and aloofness, on one memorable (and completely unexpected) occasion, the wife of a planetary governor who had essentially thrown herself at him in a wine cellar during a diplomatic visit. But he has never encountered any woman who did what Rey is doing now with this… _eagerness._ He can only lie back there in utter, blissful shock and allow her to keep doing it, grateful that he showers often, _and very thoroughly._

Then she is back to his cock, and his balls are so hard, he is so stiff, that he feels that he may burst any moment now. She seems to notice it and, in one fluid motion, removes her briefs and straddles him. And as her oh-so-wet cunt smoothly sinks onto and around his cock, it’s as if everything slides into place, as if this is the place he’s meant to be, the centre, his centre, as if all his life has led to this place, here, with this woman, _in_ this woman – _yes yes yes here here this yes this oh god please yes oh god…_

She leans back as she rides him, caressing his bursting testicles with her hand. Still smiling with glee, with _naughtiness._

“Like what I learnt, Master?”

He can only groan his assent.

She starts rocking to and fro, setting the pace. Squeezing, hugging him, driving the rhythm, his rhythm. “Don’t you worry that I might have become so competent… so _adept_ at this… that you could become addicted, Master?” She tightens her thighs around his waist, and her vagina clenches even more, gripping him. “That you could become enslaved… to… my… cunt?”

He stares at her wide-eyed, open-mouthed, unable to make any sound other than a moan, as that is absolutely _not_ beyond the realm of possibility, right now. In fact, it looks more and more likely with every second that passes.

She leans forward, still riding him, and starts to caress his nipples through the fabric of his tunic. “You watched as that machine fucked me, didn’t you. So did Phasma. Did your stormtroopers watch too? Did you enjoy that? Because it does seem to me, _Master,_ that having other people watch seriously turns you on.” She cocks an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps it is my duty as _apprentice_ to bring someone in next time. An audience. Since you seem so keen on having one.”

He’s going to explode, now, now, any moment now, he can’t help himself, he’s so hard, so tight, and she’s rocking and pinching him and driving him crazy…

“And I would have to do _anything_ you said. In front of them, watching. _Anything._ You could have the entire command watch that machine fuck me in my cunt and arse while you fuck me in the mouth. With them wanking in a circle around me as they watch. So that I would end up fucked, so thoroughly fucked, and covered in the entire crew’s jism…”

Orgasm hits him like sledgehammer, like a Starkiller blast. He cums and cums and cums into her, wildly, explosively, and somewhere at the edge of his consciousness, or at the edge of the white blaze where his consciousness used to be, he can hear her whisper in his ear as she leans in. “Let go, Master.”

And it happens again – he is gone, overwhelmed, as the Force seizes him, seizes them both, and he hears her cry, her orgasm, and they both fall into each other in mutual surrender.

The last thing he sees before darkness claims him is her body falling against him, and her face – transfixed by orgasm, by the Force, by her surrender, by the power of her surrender. Glowing. Enraptured.

Triumphant.

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving the plot along a bit. Thanks to everyone, as always! So grateful for your comments and kudos.

He is still lying in a daze, not really sure about _what the fuck has just happened here,_ when the comlink starts to buzz. Hux, at his most tense. His presence is required on the bridge, immediately. And - he suggests, in that irritating way Hux has which is not really a suggestion – that he might want to bring Rey along. So they shower and change quickly – Rey still with that mischievous smile on her face – and hurry there.

To find Hux seriously grim, arms folded behind his back. “We have just received a holomessage from Crait. I think you should see it.” He gestures to a technician with his head, and the crackling holographic figure beams forth from the console. Rey can feel how Ren, by her side, immediately tenses up, like an animal going into fight or flight – in Ren’s case, clearly fight – mode.

The Legend himself. Looking tired, and haggard, and aged beyond his years. She can see no resemblance between the dark, furious man beside her and the man with the liquid, pale eyes and hangdog features stooping slightly over a staff in the holobeam – but then, she has never been able to see any resemblance between Ren and his mother, either, other than the flares of temper. Ren must clearly take after his father. After the man he killed.

 “This is a message for my nephew, Ben Solo.” She sees, out of the corner of her eye, how Ren’s gloved hands clench into fists. The slightly high-pitched voice goes on, steadily: “I know that you are looking for me. I have left the Resistance base and gone into the desert, to avoid endangering my friends. This is between you and me, Ben. These people have done nothing to deserve your fury. I am willing to surrender myself if you will let them go. But you must come to me first. Alone. Let’s settle this once and for all, Ben.” And then the message ends, and the beam disappears.

“He has sent coordinates,” says Hux. “The deep desert. I expect he will only turn up, or give you further instructions, if you go there on your own. If we send troops, we can spend months combing the desert until we find him.”

Ren is so, so furious – a vein is throbbing visibly on the side of his neck, his face is dark with rage – that Rey fears he will start breaking things, the console, the wall, Hux’s head, any minute now. “He _summons_ me… he _fucking dares summon me_ …”

She places her hand, gently, on his forearm. “Take me to him, Master.” She looks up at him. “I will kill him.”

To Hux’s (and Rey’s) astonishment, this seems to have the effect of calming him. He nods in silence, obscurely comforted by the thought that _she’s coming with him.  
_

***

They take his personal fighter – which she would love to fly, but makes no comments on, as this _really isn’t the best time._ She is amused, however, when she confirms that, while Ren is certainly a highly competent pilot, she could do what he does with one hand tied behind her back. And blinfolded. Suddenly she worries that he may overhear her inner chuckling about his slightly clumsy manoeuvring out of the hangar, but he’s so preoccupied that he is hardly noticing her presence. Which allows her some freedom to – carefully, quietly – consider what is going to happen down on Crait.

She can kill Skywalker. She is certain of that, now, after seeing… what she saw in Ren’s memories. She thinks she would have few moral compunctions, afterwards. But _should_ she? She has told Ren that she would kill his uncle. But what will that do to him? And what will that do to the Resistance? Which was collapsing on its own anyway, but –

 _Let’s burn the bridges when we get to them, shall we?_ she thinks. And settles herself in her back seat, watching as they slide past the blockade and start the descent to the atmosphere. 

***

They land bumpily, leaving a trail like a bloody gash in the pristine white smoothness. She gazes in amazement – it looks as if they have wounded the soil, as if the ground were bleeding. “Salt over a iron-rich soil,” says Ren, coming out of the fighter. “A barren planet. Only mines here.”

“Barren?” she asks. “So what are _those_?” Pointing at a gaggle of fox-like creatures, apparently covered in icicles, that are staring down at them from the top of a dune.

“Vulptices. Local fauna.”

“Presumably they must eat something, then?”

“It is hypothesised that there is underground water, so there must be some sort of aquatic life, which would serve as the basis for some sort of ecosystem which we have not yet fully understood.” He reels out all this mechanically, as if he had learnt all these facts by rote – which he probably did. He hardly ever displays it, but Ren had a formidable education. Jedi training was nothing if not rigorous, and not only in the ways of the Force.

Those cannot be icicles on the fox creatures, because it’s not that cold – although the wind blasting constantly across the ice is harsh and unremitting, reminding her of Jakku. Ren is standing outside the fighter now, in a stance that Rey has learnt to identify with increased alertness, his apparent stillness concealing a preternaturally heightened awareness. Force focus.

They stand in silence for a long time, waiting, saying nothing. Then he tenses up. At first she can’t see what he has seen, but then she spots it too: a small dark speck in the pale sky, circling. _A drone?_

Only when it comes closer does she realise that it’s a hawk – or at least, some sort of medium-sized bird of prey. It lands a few paces away from them, a tawny, fierce creature. Ren approaches it cautiously, and the bird allows itself to be handled, and the message it carries to be detached from its leg.

Ren unfolds the small scroll and taps a set of coordinates into his geolocator. As if satisfied that he has done this, the bird takes flight again. He need not say anything – they both start trailing after it.  
 

***

They walk for several hours across the wind-blown salt plains, until they finally reach a range of low, corrugated hills, and the bird disappears behind a crag. Ren hasn’t spoken a word in all this time.

“Skywalker!” he suddently shouts, and his deep voice booms and echoes across the rocky surface. “Luke Skywalker!”

They wait. Nothing. She can feel Ren’s anger coiling like a snake up his spine, slithering darkly, tighter and tighter. “Luke Skywalker! You called for me, and here I am!”

And then, out of nowhere, that smaller, tired voice. “So you are.”

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. So George Lucas is going to kill me. And, I suspect, so will many readers. 
> 
> Anyway. Here is my answer to the question "So why is Kylo Ren so fucked up?"

Immediately, Ren whips out his lightsabre, holding it in a defensive position, crackling furious and red. Rey gestures towards her lightsabre – Skywalker’s own lightsabre, the one Maz gave to her –, but he stops her with a hand gesture. “Stand back.” Which she reluctantly does, a couple of steps.

The older man scrambles down the rocky slope, staff in hand. He is wearing a long, sandy robe, the same colour as his hair, and Rey recognises the easy movements of someone used to living in the desert. He approaches Ren. “Ben.”

“Ben died a long time ago, Skywalker.”

“You mean you killed him.”

Ren snorts. “It could be said that I only ended the job you started, _uncle._ ”

“And now you’ve come to kill me.”

“Not me. Her.”

Skywalker looks at Rey sadly. “Ah, yes. Rey, is it? I felt your… awakening in the Force. I am sorry things had to be this way.” He spots the lightsabre hanging from her belt and his eyes widen in surprise.

“Yes,” says Ren. “She is going to kill you with your own lightsabre. A fitting ending, don’t you think? Captured by a renegade Jedi, killed by the girl you were meant to train in the Force, with your own weapon. Ending the bloody Jedi farce once and for all.”

“I may not have been the best of Masters, Ben,” says Skywalker. “But I assure you the Master you are now following is no improvement. He will only lead you to hatred and the destruction of all you hold dear.”

“HOW DARE _YOU_ TELL ME ABOUT HATRED? HOW DARE _YOU_ TELL ME ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL I HOLD DEAR?” shouts Ren at him, at the top of his lungs, and for a second Rey thinks that he is going to cleave the older man in half with the lightsabre. But he manages to refrain himself and lowers the lightsabre, panting and shaking slightly with contained fury.

“I see the Dark Side is as strong in you as it ever was,” murmurs Skywalker. A humming, and he wields his own lightsabre in front of him, a pale blue blade. “I cannot allow you to bring disaster to the galaxy. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You had your chance once, old man. You won’t have another one.” And Ren hurls himself at Skywalker, sparks flying off their blades as they clash.

Rey watches, her entire body tense in anguish, as both men fight, striking and parrying and thrusting and feinting in a furious dance. Ren has the obvious physical advantage of his youth and strength and sheer _bulk –_ but Skywalker’s mastery of the Force is undeniably superior, using it to deflect and swerve and move with inconceivable speed and precision. Both men’s bodies struggle on the salty ground, while their Force fields thrum and throb and shift violently against each other, striving for dominance, so intensely that they seem to push against Rey's mind, even at a remove.

She can also see that neither man is fighting wholeheartedly – Ren is driven by his sheer hatred for his uncle, but is holding himself back, as he knows it cannot be he who delivers the final blow. Skywalker is fighting harder, more keenly, intent on removing the threat of Ren taking over the universe for the Dark Side. But there is also an inhibition that goes beyond the fact that he is trying to kill the son of his sister and his best friend, his own blood – a regret.

It is this regret, she senses, that finally makes him stumble. They are fighting on the rocky, bare slope, both fully concentrated, when suddenly Skywalker’s blade, aided by gravity and by the incline, grazes Ren’s tunic at the chest, leaving a scorched mark on the dark fabric, and a gap baring Ren's pale flesh. Skywalker looks at his nephew’s torso, at his face, and sees something there – and hesitates for a split second.

Which Ren takes advantage of to lunge forward, seize Skywalker by the robe, and hurl him down the slope. Following him so quickly that the older man doesn’t have the time to leap back to a standing position before Ren is looming over him, a foot on his chest, his red blade at his throat.

“Apprentice,” Ren calls to her. “Come. Draw your lightsabre.”

She obeys. He glances at her sideways. “Are you ready to fulfil your – _our_ – destiny?”

She looks down at the defeated man, his haunted eyes looking up at her. Looks at the dark, wrathful, victorious man next to her.

She raises her lightsabre slowly –

Then lifts her other hand. And Ren drops to the ground, unconscious.

_I’m sorry, my love._

She looks at Skywalker again. “I think we need to talk.”

 

***

She removes his lightsabre, then allows him to sit on a rock in front of her. Keeping her own lightsabre and Ren’s close to hand, just in case.

“I know what happened. What you did.”

He stares at her, surprised, for a second, then hangs his head - in shame, in guilt, in dismay? And says nothing.

“I have every reason to kill you. You deserve to die for what you did. And you know it.”

He looks up at her, those pale, tormented eyes. “There was darkness in him. There was always darkness in him. His mother knew. _I_ knew.”

“And that justified what you did to him?”

“The… Dark Side is seductive. As you well know.” He looks down to the ground again. “I was weak. I succumbed.”

“ _HE WAS A BOY!!!!!!! LITTLE MORE THAN A CHILD!!!_ How on earth could a boy seduce you?”

But she can see that he believes it, the tortured old man believes it, believes that it was the darkness in Ben that attracted him, seduced him, led him astray. And she sees, for a second, how Skywalker saw Ren back then – the little boy grown to a tall, slim, beautiful young man, with those red, luscious lips, Han’s dark eyes. His pale, lithe body in the firelight after bathing. His narrow hips. His thighs.

His own yearning. All those years of Jedi sacrifice, of celibacy, of loneliness, of self-denial. And that beautiful dark boy, Han’s boy, now standing naked in front of him.

“The darkness in him seduced me,” he repeats, stolidly. “He seduced me.”

She almost pities the tortured man, his pathetic denial, the lies he has been telling himself. Then remembers Ren’s memories – how Skywalker leveraged his position as Master to get closer and closer, correcting his posture, grappling with him half naked, talking about the Force as some sort of communion, a communion of the soul, a communion – eventually – of the body. How the body didn’t matter. How self-denial was the path to freedom. How surrender to the Force was surrender to the Master. Body and soul.

He didn’t go as far with him as he went with other, less beautiful and less satisfactory, apprentices. Far enough, though, for him to tell his parents the next time he went home for a visit. Afraid and ashamed, but he told them.

Only for his mother to slap him in the face, hard. “Liar.”

The doubt, the fear of the truth in Han’s eyes. He knew Luke, after all. Knew about his reticence, his silences. They way Luke’s eyes had followed him across a room, the way he would brush past him in the corridors of the _Millennium Falcon_. How he had visibly struggled with his own desires. Saying nothing, doing nothing. Enduring for the Light, for the Jedi Order. For the Force. Eventually becoming the Legend, chaste and inhuman. 

He had run out of the room, hot-faced, dirty, betrayed. But had heard Leia, the senator, the stateswoman, asserting the cold, hard facts to her husband.“And _even if he did – it’s worth it!_ Who else could turn Ben into the Jedi he must become? Don’t you understand, Han? _Nothing_ is more important than that! _Nothing_. _”_

His father had looked at her for a long moment, in silence. Then he had turned and gone, and never come back. Leaving them. Leaving him as his mother’s sacrifice.

When he was sent back to school, Skywalker – because Leia had told him, or because he read Ben's mind, or otherwise – _knew._ And his indoctrination about surrendering yourself, your life, your body to the Force redoubled. He, Ben, was nothing by himself. He was worthless. The only way in which a Jedi knight could count for anything – and Ben was doomed to be a Jedi knight, with his bloodline and his power there was no other option, the thought was inconceivable – was as part of the Order. A cell in tissue, an insect in a hive. With no purpose in himself, finding purpose only in the collective. And in guidance by his Master.

Then Ben ended up one night kneeling with Skywalker’s cock rammed down his throat. Too far. And Skywalker knew that the Dark Side in the boy had driven him to it. The boy had to die. All trace of his own weakness had to be expunged. The threat to the universe had to be removed.

“You tried to kill your own nephew to cover what you had done,” she says. Surprised at her own coldness. “I know what you did. I have _seen_ what you did. It wasn’t his darkness you were seeing. It was your own.”

He shakes his head silently, looking down, refusing, denying.

She stares at him, looks at Ren’s unconscious body. The question is – what to do now?

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnnnnd - there we go. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts on this!

This is the point in stories, she thinks, when something happens just in the nick of time to prevent the main character from having to make the terrible, unavoidable decision. The time for a _deus ex machina_ , the just-in-time intervention that saves the girl or halts the blade or stops the bomb countdown.

Not happening here, though. She is alone with her choice to make.

“The only reason you are still alive is because I wanted to give you the chance to say something. To defend yourself,” she says. “I won’t kill a man without hearing him out first.”

She stares at him. Silence.

She glances quickly at Ren’s fallen shape, worrying about his reaction. He had trusted her. Is this a betrayal? She didn’t _mean_ it as a betrayal – on the contrary, she had been hoping that Skywalker would be able to say something, explain something, bring some closure to Ren. That something could be salvageable from the whole awful shipwreck that is his family history. That somehow she could make it _hurt less_.

Also, to be completely honest, she felt she owed it to herself. _I just wanted to hear what he had to say. It’s only fair. To Skywalker and to me._

Just for a second, her attention lapses. And suddenly Skywalker is upon her, kicking her down to the ground in a single bound – who would have thought such an aged-looking man would be so nimble, so unexpectedly strong? His former lightsabre, which she had been holding, flies into the air, and he Force-reaches for it – only for Rey to halt it in mid-air, raising her hand from the ground, so that it starts twitching towards her.

He gapes at the lightsabre, at her, in disbelief. Then kicks her again, at the base of the throat, so that she collapses, choked, and the lightsabre flies straight into his hand. He kicks the two other lightsabres, which were on the ground, aside, sending her usual one far into the rocks – but she manages to lunge and seize Ren’s, rolling over just as Skywalker’s blade falls on her.

 _She is alone facing down a Jedi Master._ Panicked, she tries to send a jolt through the Force to wake Ren up, but Skywalker is blocking it, his signature enveloping them both like a bubble, cutting her off. “I have no wish to harm you, Rey,” he says. “But I will if you don’t let me go.”

Her only response is to activate Ren’s lightsabre. He raises an eyebrow at the convulsive, furious red blade. “Only to be expected of my nephew. That weapon is much too powerful and – _perverse_ for you, little girl. Why don’t you just let me go?”

“No. You are not leaving.”

He smiles slightly, then turns around and starts to walk away. She stares at his back for a second, then runs after him. As she expected, he turns around and swipes at her with the blade, but she bends back, avoiding it – kicking his hand with one leg as she curves back, so that his lightsabre flies through the air. She lands in a crouch, then, with lightning speed, lunges at him, hitting his solar plexus, so that he crumples to the ground. She cannot help a brief, satisfied smile - _Kulhum would be proud._

Quickly, she steps forward and pushes him down with her foot, placing the tip of Ren’s fiery blade at his throat. “Don’t you even think of using the Force." Then, his Force-block gone, she prods Ren out of unconsciousness.

Who sits up, blinking. Then sees the live lightsabre lying on the ground near him, and Skywalker pinned down by Rey. Who is actually wielding _his lightsabre._ Then he remembers, and his face starts to darken.

“Master”, says Rey. Ren gets up and approaches them threateningly. But she just hands him his weapon, so that it is he who pins Skywalker down now. Then she takes a few steps back and prostrates herself. On all fours, face to the ground, palms upwards.

“ _What…_ ”

She brings down all her mental shields, absolutely all of them. So that she is bowing there, abasing herself, _grovelling,_ fully exposed to him. Completely vulnerable. Making it completely clear that she will not move a finger to defend herself, whatever he chooses to do to her.

Beguiled despite his own best judgement, despite the voice screaming at him to kill her, to kill the treacherous little bitch _now_ , he enters her thoughts, which have never been so absolutely, so eagerly open to him – and sees. How she probed his memories when he was feverish – _at Hux’s suggestion_. How she has known _all along_ (and his wrath, his shame rise within him like boiling lava). But also how she felt. Her fury on his behalf. Her resolve to kill this man. Her fear for him, for Ren, that killing his uncle would hurt him even more badly. Her fierce need to protect him, from Snoke, from himself.  And also, no less importantly, her integrity, her conscience. Her horror at the thought of killing someone. How she felt that Skywalker had to be given a chance to defend himself, despite everything. And her fear, throughout – her fear of him, of betraying him, of losing him, of not being able to live up to his expectations. Of failing him.

The fierceness, the complexity of her love for him. He had expected devotion, surrender. But, he realises now, devotion and surrender from this woman come with everything else that makes her _her_. He can have her – but whole, not just part of her.

He looks down at her supine body. She isn’t using the Force to probe how he is reacting. It’s completely unilateral, entirely asymmetrical now, with him fully in control – she has placed herself completely at his mercy. He senses her fear, but also her feeling that, if he decides to kill her now, she understands. How she has made her peace with this.

He swallows. Takes a deep breath. “Stand up.”

She does. Looking at him in the eye, completely calm, completely transparent. Completely surrendered to his will.

“We’ll talk about this later.” He stands back. “But now you have a choice.”

“A choice?”

He nods. “I’ll do it, if you like.” His face softens, a little. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.” _I won’t do this to you._

She says nothing. Then reaches out and her lightsabre flies from the ground into her hand. She steps forward. Looks into Skywalker’s eyes.

“Just say you are sorry,” she says, almost gently. “Just say it.”

Skywalker closes his eyes tightly for a second. Then opens them and stares at Ren. “It was the darkness in him. He gave in to the Dark Side,” he hisses. “Like my father. It was the darkness. It’s in his blood, and he was weak. If you allow him to live, he'll destroy the galaxy. Like he destroyed his parents.”

“Very well, then.”

His eyes open wide in sudden terror at the resolve in her eyes. He raises his hands, protecting himself as an unthinking reflex. “This isn’t the Jedi way – !”

“No,” she says. “It isn’t.” And brings the lightsabre down.

 

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your feedback!!! And now for a little Ren therapy.

Skywalker’s blood splatters across her face and torso as the aortic flow jets out and his severed head and hands drop to the ground.

She stands there, stock still, covered in blood, visibly panting. Strong. Fierce. Beautiful. _God, I have never loved her so much,_ he catches himself thinking.

And then she turns, and goes deathly pale, and starts to retch. Gasping for breath as her diaphragm spasms on emptiness like a demented creature. _I have just killed another human being._ He rushes forward to catch her as she stumbles and almost falls, sickened at what she has just done.

“It’s all right. It’s all right, Rey. It’s over.”

***

She walks all the way back to the fighter like a somnambulist. He tries to gauge her mental state, but she’s got much better lately at protecting herself, and is only able to sense the overall shock, the way in which she’s gone into automatic pilot. He glances at her, concerned. _That will have to do. At least, until we get back to the ship._

On the flight back, she only speaks to remember her friends. “They will be all right now, won’t they? You won’t hurt them? You _promised._ ”

“Nobody will be hurt. It’s all over now. It’s all right,” he reassures her. Over and over and over.

He is now able to overhear some of her mental noise, which is getting so loud that her barriers are not quite enough to conceal it. The guilt, of course. The terrible, crushing guilt which has fallen upon her. He had expected it, but still it maddens him to see her suffer so under it. And he knows – from experience – that it won’t go away. Not by itself, at least.

His own solution was to throw himself into the Dark Side, into his apprenticeship with Snoke, into the First Order. Turn his guilt into hatred, into something that would drive him past the paralysis.With Rey, he is fully aware, that won’t work. Her mindset is completely different.

He remembers what he saw, that first time her mind fell open to him. Her fantasies. Her needs. The torturer and the rescuer.

_Ah._

And then he knows what he needs to do.

 

***

 

When they get back to the ship, he sidelines an anxious Hux, who is waiting for them in the hangar. “Did you…?”

“Yes,” curtly, and they walk away, past the baffled General. Dropping the bloodied bag containing Skywalker's head and hands at his feet. 

 

***

He leads Rey straight to his quarters. Where she just stands silently, still caked in blood. He can almost hear the whipping and churning of her guilt in her head. He removes his cloak, walks across the room, to the sofa area, and then, in the iciest tone he can manage, says: “And why exactly are you still standing, _apprentice_?”

She turns to him, surprised, and sees the stony look in his eyes. Immediately, wordlessly, she sinks to her knees.

“Crawl over here. _Now._ ”

Which she does, until she reaches his feet where he is standing. Tall and dour and pitiless. She looks up at him, as if in supplication. _Oh yes, my love,_ he thinks. _I know what you need._

“You crept into my memories. You Force-stunned me,” he says, steely. “You know you need to be punished.”

She says nothing. Just swallows, and looks down.

“ _Look at me._ ” He grabs her chin and forces her to look up, right into his eyes. She is coiled so tightly, the shame and the guilt and the fear twisting her from inside, she feels as if she might break any minute. His voice softens. “Meditation time, Rey.”

And the look of stunned relief and gratitude in her eyes, for a split second, before she collapses at his feet.

***

“Open your eyes, Rey.”

She does. She is again on all fours on his bed. Naked, though – he must have removed her clothes – although she is still covered in Skywalker’s dry blood, which flakes and falls onto the bed cover when she moves. But she cannot move much – there are leather cuffs at her wrists and ankles, attached to longer straps that are tied to anchors concealed under the mattress. She can move, but only within a limited range: although she can turn over, she definitely cannot stand up, even on her knees, or turn around. Not that she tries to move at all – she feels as limp as a noodle, even though she is propped up on her knees, as if someone had placed her in that position and all she could do was to remain thus posed like a doll, unthinkingly. Her thoughts are foggy and dim, although there is something buzzing around, like a hornet, getting closer and closer, disturbing her groggy calmness…

And then it comes back to her, and she gulps, and tries to get up, straining against her restraints. _Wrong wrong wrong I did something wrong I am foul I am guilty I did it how could I am bad there is no going back…_

“Stop it.”

His voice behind her, and his hand on her haunch. Heavy. Warm. Stilling her.

“You need to be punished for your own good, apprentice. You need discipline. You need _control_.” And his blow lands on her right buttock, so hard that it pushes her forward, panting.

“You are a _dirty…_ ” – smack – “… _filthy…_ ” – smack – “… _disgusting_ little slut, aren’t you?” Smack. “I can smell your cunt from here, scavenger. You are _oozing._ ” And it’s true. She’s been sopping wet since she found herself like this.

“How dare you enter my thoughts without my permission.” Smack. “How dare you talk about me _with Hux_." Smack (this one even harder, more _personal_ ). “How dare you _Force-stun me_.” Smack.

The blows rain down, harder and harder, relentless, and her body feels as if it is on fire. (She marvels, briefly, dizzily, how his own hand can stand it.)  And yet the sting in her mind won’t go, it’s still there, humming lowly, waiting…

Sensing it, he suddenly lunges forward and grabs her by the hair, jerking her head back. “Are you paying attention, _slut_?” He roughly turns her over, so that she is lying on her back, the long straps binding her crossing and tightening at her wrists and ankles. He slaps her in the face, twice, then grabs her face with one hand, squeezing her cheeks, her lips, as if she were a doll. “ _Look at me.”_ And he looms over her, terrible like an avenging god, like her doom, her judge. He brings the hand clutching her face down to her throat, tight, while with the other he undoes his trousers.

“You do not get to _think._ ” And he thrusts into her. “You are my _property._ My _thing._ I tell you what to do. What to think. What to feel.” Thrusting into her wetness, as she clenches and spasms beneath him, tight, so tight. “ _I. own. you._ ” 

He’s driving hard, so hard, now, he knows he’s hurting her, but he also know he cannot stop – _must not_ stop now. “ _Look at me._ ” His eyes on hers, holding, forcing her gaze, her eyes lost in his, captured, unable to look away. Controlling her completely, her breath, her body, her soul. Completely at his mercy. 

“Look at me. Fall into me. _Nothing else matters._ There is nothing else. Just my will. _You know I can take whatever I want._ ”

She cries out beneath him, writhing in her pain, her agony, his relentless fucking of her cunt and her mind. So tormented. So aroused. She is going to die, she deserves to die, she's dirty, so dirty...

“I’m going to cleanse you, Rey. Empty you out. So empty. You are nothing but a hole to be filled, aren’t you?”

She is crying now, tears streaming down her face, beyond pain, beyond pleasure, just raw, burning flesh, and her mind opening up completely to him, desperate to surrender, desperate for self-oblivion. “ _Please…_ ”

“ _Give it to me,_ ” he growls, and bites down on her shoulder, hard, as he shoots into her, scouring her, _releasing_ her, as she convulses and arches up against him, over and over and over, as the Force blasts from him into her and back to him, burning through them, binding them, until they fall, exhausted, consumed, into each other’s arms.

She drops straight into unconsciousness. But before he follows her, he holds her, kisses her lightly, and whispers in her ear: _“Remember this.”_

 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving the plot along a bit more. Thanks to everyone, as always!

She wakes up, eventually. To see him sitting on a chair across the room, leaning on his knees and looking at her, in a way that reminds her of the first time she saw him, in the interrogation room. Only know he is no longer the creature in the mask, and he is looking at her in concern.

“Hello,” she smiles, weakly.

“Hello,” he answers. “How are you feeling?” Clearly worried.

She sits up, rubbing her head. Notices his bite on her shoulder. His mark. “Fine. I think.” The last dream figments starting to clear. “Last night. You – did something to me. To my mind. Different.”

“Yes.”

She is silent for an instant. “It’s not the first time, is it.”

“No.” She falls silent again, and his worry mounts. Until he eventually cannot stand the silence any more. “Are you all right?” With restrained anxiousness.

She hugs herself. “I… don’t know how I feel. About _that_. I think I need to digest it.” She looks up at him, her eyes unexpectedly soft. “But thank you. For – helping with the guilt. I needed that.” Her voice drops, low. “You know me.”

He looks back at her, steadily. “Yes. I know you.” And suddenly the air is electric between them – as if nobody could ever have said anything more intimate, more erotic.

And then she remembers. “The Resistance!!! What is…?”

He interrupts her, reassuring. “Everyone is fine. No shots have been fired.”

She jumps out of bed, still naked. “So will negotiations start now? _Please_ take me down to Crait – I _need_ to talk to them, _need_ to explain to them… I can help with the negotiations, I promise. _Please._ ”

He looks at her with a mixture of frustration and dismay. “I know. I know you would, Rey. There is… a problem, though.” He stands up and starts to pace the room, running his fingers through his hair. “Snoke.”

She tenses immediately. “What about him?”

“He… felt Skywalker’s death in the Force. Now he wants to supervise the extermination of the Resistance personally.” He looks up at her. “He’s on his way here.”

She stands stock still, realising the implications. “He’s going to have them all killed.”

“Very likely. Yes.”

She walks up to him and places her arms lightly around him. “I know how you feel about Snoke, Master. I saw it when I entered your thoughts. You thought he would be your guide, your mentor. But he’s using you. And you know it.” She looks up at him, at his deadly serious face. “You are disgusted by him. You want to kill him.”

A heartbeat. “Yes. And so does Hux. I think. We have never spoken about it openly, though.”

“You know what must be done, then.”

“Yes.” Suddenly, he looks – afraid. “Snoke thinks that by killing Skywalker you have turned to the Dark Side. I have no doubt that he is also coming because of that. He’ll want to – put you to the test.” He places his hands on her shoulders, gently. “I’m not allowing you to be hurt, Rey.”

“No, of course. Only _you_ get to do that, eh?” They both chuckle, relieving the tension, a little. “I know you will protect me, Master.” She covers his hands with hers. “But we have to do what must be done. You know that.” She leans her head forward, so that her forehead is resting against his chest, feeling his hearbeat against her.

He draws her closer, and they stand in silence, holding each other, until the comlink buzzes, calling him to the bridge.

 

***

At Rey’s suggestion – and with considerable effort on Ren’s part to overcome his reluctance – , they have asked Hux over to Ren’s quarters for dinner.

“Nice library, Commander,” he muses, running his hand over the book spines. “I hadn’t taken you for a reader.”

Ren’s mental cursing is so loud that Rey has to conceal a smile. “No, well. Shall we sit?”

The house droids have laid the table next to the vast windows, and they all sit to a spread of entrées. Rey prays that Hux won’t make any quips about the last meal involving all three of them, but he seems to be intelligent enough – or non-suicidal enough – not to mention that.

In fact, he goes straight to the point. “I take it that the reason for this otherwise delightful invitation is to discuss our current… situation, Commander?”

“Yes. The Supreme Leader will be arriving in - two days’ time, is it? As you know, my apprentice has fulfilled the task he set her.”

Hux nods gravely in recognition. “Indeed. I must say I had my doubts about that. It cannot have been an easy task.” And looks at her, clearly knowing exactly why it was not easy.

Ren frowns. “Yes. Well. If he is satisfied with my apprentice’s performance, the Supreme Commander will now no doubt seek to… consolidate the power structure that he has envisaged all this time.”

“Whatever that may be. Yes.”

They stare at each other cautiously, reminding Rey of two wolves sniffing each other. It’s clear what either one of them is silently thinking: _you say it first._

So she says it herself. “Are you planning on killing Snoke, General?” Both men turns their heads and stare at her, appalled. She dabs at her mouth with her napkin. “These little ball things are really something.” She looks at Hux in the eye. “Because _I_ am, you see.”

Hux holds her gaze for a long instant, completely impassive. Ren is starting to think about how he will explain to the stormtroopers that Hux accidentally and very sadly tripped on his lightsabre and impaled himself, when Hux does something that Ren has never seen him do before.

He throws his head back and laughs.

***

 

She turns to face Ren, beaming, as the door hisses shut behind the exiting Hux.

“See? I told you. He’s on our side.”

He drops his heavy weight onto one of the sofas, releasing the evening’s tension. “Don’t take anything for granted, Rey. Hux is on Hux’s side. He may be willing to help us get rid of Snoke, but expect him to stab you in the back the minute things go wrong, or if he can benefit in any way.” He starts to take off his boots. “However, I think it’s more convenient for him to help us now, I’ll give you that. And we’re both compromised. If Snoke reads our minds, we’re both fucked. Guaranteed mutual destruction. So now we are both highly motivated to kill Snoke.”

She approaches him, kneels next to his legs. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Master. But I think you should give him more credit.”

As expected, he stiffens, hackles raised. “Should I? This, I remind you, is the man that once called you a pathetic, weak-willed slut.”

 _As if you hadn’t called me much worse._ She smiles. “I just think the man’s capable of changing his mind. Reasonable. Which is… unusual, you’ll agree.”

Ren’s mouth twists in displeasure, but he forces himself to be scrupulously honest. “He’s someone who is driven to win, Hux. He needs to prove himself, constantly. I understand he had a difficult relationship with his father, the old General Hux.” _Join the club._ “But you’re right. He’s sensible. Even though he often drives me insane with his tight-arsedness.”

She hides a smile, thinking how what Ren calls tight-arsedness Hux no doubt sees as scrupulous fairness and conscientiousness. But then, unlike Ren, Hux is someone who has steel control over his emotions and actions at all times. Even the man’s clothes seem not to wrinkle, for God’s sake.

He grips her wrist, suddenly, and she can see how, for a second, he is seized with jealousy, with insecurity, with fear. He has the look in his eyes that he had when he sent her off for conditioning.

Then he takes a deep breath, and, very deliberately, lets go of her, and the awful moment passes.

She raises herself up on her knees, reaches her hand to his cheek. “I think General Hux is a better man than you think.” She leans forward and kisses him on the mouth, hard. “But _you_ are my Master _._ ”

 

 


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically dialogue to move the plot along. Sorry for the delay - had to lug boxes of books around and set up shelves, so I was left completely exhausted (those of you whose books breed when you turn your back on them will understand).
> 
> As always, thanks to everyone for your comments and kudos!

They have to wait. Which gives them time to go over all the possible scenarios – and what can possibly go wrong – repeatedly.

“He’ll want to test you,” says Ren, pacing up and down his quarters, as she watches him. “I’m certain of that. He sensed Skywalker’s death, but he’ll want to test you further. And he’ll ream you.” He clutches at the back of a chair so hard that she worries that it will break in his hands. “I won’t allow that to happen.”

“How does he travel?” she asks, trying to divert his thoughts towards more specific things. “What protection does he have?”

“His own ship, his own guards. He’ll be immediately protected by his eight Praetorians – elite warriors. Psychopathic, fanatical. Killing machines.”

“How’s your… relationship with your Knights? Would they support you with – that?”

He smiles, briefly. “Oh, yes. My Knights are loyal. And they would be happy to see me on the throne rather than that sadistic, deformed mutant. But they won’t be admitted to Snoke’s presence. He’s not an idiot. It’ll be you, me, and perhaps Hux – together, separately, I’ve no idea.” He runs his fingers through his hair – it’s clearly driving him crazy, the uncertainty.

“And his forces? The troops?”

“Hux says that he _thinks_ he could persuade the majority of the troops to follow him in the event of a – catastrophe. He’s the visible face of the First Order, after all, and he’s the one doing the dirty work. The troops know him, and – I won’t say they like him, but it’s clear that they listen to him. If there was a coup, many of them would side with Hux, that’s for certain.” He clenches his hands again. “The question is how to get to Snoke by ourselves. He’s probably the most powerful Force user in the galaxy. And he’ll be surrounded by the most lethal warriors in existence. We need to lay a trap.” Looks up at her. “I’ve – thought of something.”

“Yes?”

He hesitates. “There have been times, when –”

“When we had sex.”

Nods. “Yes. I felt a surge in the Force. Through us. From you to me, and the other way round. A – flow. A loop. Incredibly powerful – it overwhelmed me.”

She nods, too. “I know. I felt it, too.” Smiles. “Didn’t overwhelm _me,_ though.”

“I’ve been doing some research. Consulting the old Jedi and Sith texts, trying to find an explanation – I’d never come across anything like that in my training. Some ancient sources – really ancient, from far before the split between the Jedi and the Sith, when there were no distinct Force schools – talk about sexuality as a source of power. A channel for the Force. I’m not entirely sure, but I think that the way in which we – our sexual dynamics – seem to create, at very specific points, a very powerful conduit for the Force.”

“You mean, the fact that you dominate and I submit?”

“Yes. But more specifically, there’s a point at which – I’m not sure how to talk about this.” He slumps on the sofa next to her. “I like to dominate. That much is obvious.”

“Quite _._ ” _The understatement of the millennium._

“I’ve done it in the past, with – other people. But as I told you once, I’d never come across someone who had such a deep need to submit as you. Such depth of _surrender._ ” She blushes. “That – does something to me, too. I have often told you to give yourself over, to lose yourself to me. But the fact is, that I lose myself too when that happens, when you surrender so entirely. I give myself to you too, in a way.” He is looking at her intently, now. “And I think that creates a sort of lock in the Force flowing between us. It focalises it. Intensifies it. Making us more than the sum of our parts, in the Force, at that moment. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“Yes,” she nods. “I think I do. But how do you intend to make use of that? By fucking me silly in front of Snoke and his Praetorians?”

He swallows, intensely perturbed by the unexpected mental image – and even more perturbed by the fact that, to a certain extent, it has undeniably aroused him. “I’m not sure. But I think that if we could tap into _that_ when we’re in Snoke’s presence, we might have a chance of overpowering him."

“I see. How do you think we should go about that?”

He swallows again. “You… remember what happened the other night.”

“You put me in a trance, didn’t you?”

He nods. “I… placed a trigger in your mind, early on. I knew you were only going to become stronger in the Force, and become increasingly able to shield yourself, as you trained. I wanted a way to access your thoughts instantly, with no mediation. With no defences.”

She stares at him, such a fixed stare that he worries that she’s going to get up and leave in indignation any second. But she just says, levelly: “You wanted to _shape_ my thoughts. Without my being aware of it.”

“Yes.”

“You were conditioning me to become more – what? Docile? Pliable?”

“That was the idea, yes. I wanted to make it more… natural for you to submit to me. More automatic. Like a reflex reaction.” He pauses for a second. “I saw such _need_ , such _yearning_. I wanted to make it quicker. Easier.”

She holds his gaze, steadily. “Are you sure it was my yearning you saw? Or _yours_?”

He is silent for an instant. “Both.” His voice drops. “The minute I saw you, I had to _own_ you. _Possess_ you. _Completely_. I had never felt anything like that in my life. I had to assert my control over you, or it would kill me.”

“And that’s why your kneejerk reaction when you got jealous was to send me for reconditioning.”

He has the grace to look ashamed of himself, here. “I really am sorry about that, Rey. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t want you to be – I would never want you turned into anything other than _yourself_. I don’t want to turn you into some mere figment of my fantasies.”

“That would get pretty boring, pretty soon, I think,” she says, under her breath, and he smiles.

“Quite. You are _other_ than me. And that’s the wonder of it. You’re not a part of me, there’s always the edge of the unexpected, of reality. You're stubborn and opinionated and you _fight_ me - and yet you also surrender yourself to me, willingly. You have your own mind. You’re not a fantasy – which doesn’t mean that I don’t want to play out my fantasies with you. Or _on_ you.” He becomes abruptly serious again. “The thing is, I think the trigger I implanted in you could be unexpectedly useful now.” He looks at her in the eye, urgently, slightly desperate. “You will have to trust me, though. Completely.”

She holds his gaze, feeling his emotional nakedness before her, his uncertainty, his fear. How he’ll do anything – _anything –_ to protect her.

She smiles. “So when do we start?”

 

 


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we go to the Throne Room!

“So when do we start?”

“Now, if you are ready. I – want to booby trap you.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Your mind, not your body, obviously.” He stands up and starts to pace up and down as he explains. “Snoke will want to probe your mind – to ream you – I’m absolutely certain of that. And painfully. He enjoys it. There is a mental technique, called the Entanglement. It’s a way of setting up a tangle, or a maze, in your mind, so that any other consciousness trying to read your thoughts gets trapped in it. Usually an experienced Force user will be able to detect an Entanglement before he goes in.” He looks at Rey. “But if you are in trance when Snoke goes in, he may not realise. Particularly if I set up a screen – which, again, he won’t notice because you won’t be aware of it either.”

“So – essentially, you want me to slow him down?”

“Yes. He won’t be stopped for long by an Entanglement. But I just need him to be incapacitated for a few seconds, so that I can strike at him.”

“And the Praetorians?”

“Ah.” He frowns and sits again. “They are not Force users. If we manage to – channel the Force, we might stun them. Giving me time to kill them.”

She turns sharply. “What do you mean, giving _you_ time?”

He sighs. “I’ll need you to anchor the Force, Rey. To get Snoke first, and then the Praetorians. If the focus is strong enough, it might stun them, paralyse them. But I _need_ you to hold the focus.” He seizes her by the elbows, stopping her as she tries to protest, indignant. “ _Please,_ Rey. I need you to trust me. _Completely_. If you hold the focus, we’ll have a chance. If you don’t – there’s eight of them, Rey. I know you want to fight. But I need you to _hold the focus._ ”

She looks at him, doubtfully. Then takes a deep breath. “Very well. What do you need me to do?”

He smiles, regretfully. “Nothing. Just let me do it.” And takes her hand. “Meditation time, Rey.”

 

***

Finally, Snoke arrives. The next morning, the ship is filled with slightly panicked scurrying and hastening as the crew get ready to dock in the _Supremacy,_ Snoke’s monstruous mega-ship, so large that it serves officially as the headquarters and capital of the First Order.

She is watching throught the panoramic windows, fascinated, as the vast, dark shape approaches, like a looming horizon that eventually blacks out the stars and engulfs their ship – and all of a sudden they are hovering, dwarfed, in a gargantuan hangar, lined with lights. She wonders whether this is what being swallowed by one of those animals she has read about, called whales, is like.

Ren emerges from his room, completely clad in black from his head down. She herself is also in black – a long-sleeved, close-fitting hooded robe over black trousers. They walk to the door, and he briefly squeezes her hand – then he walks out, and she dutifully follows him a few steps behind him and to his right, as his apprentice, as he strides towards the exit.

They are flown via a shuttle to a the body of the _Supremacy,_ and then led through its bowels for what seems like ages – the mega-ship is so vast, it even has its own internal transportation system, a sort of floating monorail cars. As they disembark from it, they see Hux at a distance, also in his blackest uniform, stiffer than ever. But the faceless, silent stormtrooper officer guiding them does not allow them to stop.

They finally reach the jet-black doors – the gates, rather, they are so high – to the Throne Room. Ren takes a deep breath, bracing himself for his return to this place, which is so painfully familiar – and glances down at Rey, who is standing, pale and silent, holding her fear tight. She notices his gaze and looks back at him, with a small smile –

Then four Imperial guards seize her.

“ _What – “_

“The Supreme Leader wishes to see you on your own first, Lord Ren,” comes the impersonal voice of the officer from behind his red helmet. “He has instructed that your apprentice be brought in later. And that you be assued that she will come to no harm meanwhile.”

They exchange one last, anguished look. Then Ren nods curtly, and Rey allows herself to be taken away.

He closes his eyes in a brief, calming meditation, feeling for the last time the strength of the mental shields he has been setting up all day, if only to reassure himself. Then the doors open, and he steps into the dark red gloom.

And there he is, the ancient, evil creature on that damned throne, flanked by the eight huge carapaced red figures, standing as still as statues.

He immediately drops to one knee, head bowed. “Master.”

“Lord Ren,” comes the creature’s acid-laced voice from the throne. He sounds almost amused, if amusement could be said to be dripping with derision. “So Skywalker is dead and the Resistance are trapped on Crait. I have to say, I hadn’t expected you to be quite so successful.”

“I have always been your loyal servant, Master.”

“Loyalty is not enough. I require _success_. And I am pleased, Master of the Knights of Ren. You had displayed a worrying amount of compassion for that whore. I am pleased that you finally found the way of manipulating her into the Dark Side. I have to say, I hadn’t expected you to be so adept at sexual intricacies.” He laughs at this – Snoke really likes both his monologising and his own jokes –, and his mocking laughter echoes across the vaulted ceiling. Then he purrs. “It pleases me – it pleases me indeed, apprentice. You have found a way to harness your darkness and enslave weaker minds through sex and domination. I must make further use of this.”

Ren swallows involuntarily at this, just starting to imagine the sort of things that Snoke is planning to order him do – _perpetrate –_ right now. Which Snoke, of course, notices.

“Aroused, my apprentice?” he jeers. “Hmm. Good. Because, even though you’ve proven that I’ve been quite unimaginative, you shouldn’t think that I had overlooked the matter of sex altogether. Although, I fear, I have tended to see it from a purely _functional_ point of view.” He leans forward in his throne. “You see, apprentice, there comes a point when you understand the truth – that all there is is _power._ Everything else is _nothing_. Power, and how to retain it and increase it. This is what you must learn. And what you will now enable me to achieve.”

Snoke makes a slight gesture with his head, towards the doors. “Power comes from the Dark Side of the Force. I turned you to the Dark Side. You have turned the girl to the Dark Side. And now you will help me to increase my power through the Force.”

The creature is now no longer staring at him, but past him. Ren turns to follow Snoke’s gaze, looking past his shoulder – and sees Rey, who has been brought into the room, and is standing there.

Completely naked, except for a thin silver collar around her neck, and a chain hanging loosely between her breasts, down to her feet.

He stares in shock at her, then back at Snoke, whose yellow eyes are gleaming in malicious delight. “I had her medical records delivered, and her contraceptive implant has just been removed. She is ripe,” he smirks. “Now, Master of the Knights of Ren, I command you _._ ”

“ _Breed.”_

 


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's my version of the Throne Room scene.

“ _Breed.”_

_WHAT?????_

He stares, wild-eyed, at the creature, then at Rey, then back at the creature. _Surely he can’t…?_

Smirking at his shock, Snoke merely curls two fingers, and Rey is instantly lifted through the air, and sent whooshing past Ren, to land in a heap at Snoke’s feet.

“Oh, yes, apprentice. You are going to fuck her right here, right now, in front of _me._ I want to be present when you start the new line of Vader blood. I want to be there _right from the start._ ”

 _So you can whisper your venom into my child’s head right from the zygote._ He doesn’t know what is shaking him more right now, his fury or his fear or his horror at this monster and what he wants to do – _what he’s doing right now_ – to Rey, to him, to his potential child.

He looks at Rey in agony, where she lies on the floor, naked and helpless. He’s never felt more impotent, more useless. He had expected Snoke to test her, to make her prove that she’s fully on the Dark Side – he didn’t tell her, but he was expecting Snoke to ask her to kill Finn, or any other of her Resistance friends, or even him, if Snoke thought that he was obsolete and Rey would be a more promising apprentice. But the creature clearly believes that Rey is so subjugated, so much already under Ren’s – and, indirectly, under Snoke’s – thumb, that even bothering to put her to the test would be a waste of time. And it’s also clear that Snoke only sees her – and has only seen her, all along – as a mere vessel, a Force receptacle for Vader’s seed. All the times Ren has told her, in the heat of sex, in the heat of his fantasies of control and power, that she was nothing but a thing, _his_ thing, now come back to him in a horrifying, sickening flashback. He wanted to turn her into a thing – and he’s turned her into _Snoke’s_ thing.

_Just like me._

Snoke’s not going to probe her mind, he thinks in despair. He’s not going to get trapped in the Entanglement. Ren won’t get the chance to kill him, or to stun the Praetorians. He’s fooled himself. He’s underestimated the depths of Snoke’s depravity. He’s failed her.

 “What are you waiting for, apprentice?” comes Snoke’s snarl. He needs to move, to do _something,_ or this will end terribly for everyone. He walks up to Rey and stands looming above her. About to become a monster. Finally. _I’m so sorry, my love._

She props herself up on an elbow and looks up at him. With no fear. Then she takes the end of the chain hanging from her collar, and holds it out to him. Widens her eyes slightly, for a second, and he thinks he understands.

He takes the chain and pulls on it, forcing her up to her feet, drawing her close against him. Close enough for her mouth to come close to his ear and whisper: “ _I trust you, Master.”_

He stares at her, stunned, for an instant, still holding her close. Then he crushes his mouth against her, and he can feel how the Force emerges with his arousal as she yields to him, how it surges and flows from him to her, from her to him, as he closes his eyes and gives himself to her, forgetting about the pain, forgetting about the monster looming over them, surrendering to his desire and his hunger and his – yes – love for this woman. _I am yours,_ his entire body cries out, and the Force rises like a shimmering wave, filling them, brimming, holding them up –

And suddenly she draws back, and he opens his eyes, and sees the bright field around her, like a humming, dazzling halo. She is smiling at him – and, following her gaze, he sees it also around him, like a magnetic shield around his body.

“ _Now!!!”_ she shouts, and swivels on her heels, arms raised above her head, to hurl a blast of white light at Snoke.

The Praetorians react automatically, as if they were a single lethal mechanism, by unfolding their retractable halabards and running forwards. Ren has no lightsabre – he and Rey had been frisked before being admitted to Snoke’s presence, as usual – but he manages to shape the force into a containment wall which he throws at the four Praetorians to the right of the throne, while he deals with the ones to the left, hurling Force blasts at them.

Meanwhile, Rey rushes forward and clambers up to the throne, easily avoiding the stunned Snoke’s clumsy clutching. Leaning down, she manages to snatch his lightsabre.

“Ben!”

He looks up, and seizes the weapon mid-arc. Then ignites it, and lets loose all his fury, all the years of pent-up wrath and pain and desperation and fear against the Praetorians, hacking like a madman.

Snoke sees it, and starts to react, trying to get up, marshalling his command of the Force to kill his apprentice in one blow – when he feels the constriction against his throat.

Straddling both arms of the throne, Rey positions herself behind the creature, then flings her collar chain around his neck, and pulls and pulls.

“You wanted darkness and hatred, Supreme Leader?” she hisses. “ _Here’s hatred for you._ ”

She can feel the creature’s Force signature push frantically against her, like a drowning man clawing against the side of a boat. But it feels like some distant scratching against her mind. She’s never felt more powerful, more strong, more certain of what she is doing. The chain bites against the palms of her hands, looped against her wrists, which are starting to drip with blood, but she can’t feel it – she just pulls and pulls, intent, certain. _You thought I was nothing. You tried to remove his humanity. Well, now_ I _am removing you._

Ren has just beheaded the fourth Praetorian when he turns and looks at her. As Snoke gurgles and thrashes in his final, agonising throes. Then slumps forward, dead. And Rey rises above the body of the creature, panting, blood running down her arms, her deadly chain hanging between her breasts, her eyes gleaming. Tall and proud and fierce. She’s never been so beautiful, to him.

“I love you,” he hears himself say, from out of the depths.

She smiles sideways, then the smile widens to her entire face. She pushes a lock of hair back, bloodying her face. “I know.” Then looks to her left, sharply. “The Praetorians!”

The Force wall is failing, and the four massive warriors are shouldering their way through it, halabards blazing. He tries to rebuild it, but he’s exhausted after the fight with the other four, and the Force is now ebbing from both of them.

Rey jumps down from the throne, towards his side. With nothing but the chain in her hands. “No, Rey…”

“Yes.” Taking her stand by his side.

It’s hopeless, and he knows it. They both know it. He has – just about – managed four stunned Praetorians when he was at the crest of the Force, but it’s taken almost all of his strength out of him. These are the elite of the Imperial troops, trained exclusively for this purpose from childhood. And they are fresh.

He circles Rey’s waist with his arm, crushing her against him for a last instant. “I love you. I have loved you since I saw you. I…” _I am sorry to have led you to this, to this end._

“I love you.” She is smiling through her tears. “And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. But here. With you.” And kisses him, hard.

And they both turn to face the approaching Praetorians, like red doom. Ren steps forwards, lightsabre raised up high, to block the falling blow from the first one, shielding her with his body. But the three other ones encroach upon them, closing the circle, their blades coming closer and closer, ready to fall any second now –

When the blaster fire slices through the head of the Praetorian struggling against Ren.

They turn in shock. Hux, holding his blaster with the smuggest smile she has seen in her life – not that she minds, right now. And behind him, storming across the expanse between the door and the throne area, hurling themselves at the Praetorians, come the Knights of Ren. She catches a glimpse of Kulhum, diving feet first into the fight in his Quarren leap, before the mêlée becomes entirely too confused and gory to follow.

She is still staring in amazement when she feels something suddenly covering her up. Ren, who has hurried towards her, thrown his cloak around her body, and is now hustling her out of the area of the fray, towards Hux and safety.

Hux takes a long, cool look at her, and smiles. “ _Interesting_ attire…”

Ren essentially _growls_. “Take care of her while we finish this.”

“Sure. And you’re welcome, Ren.”

Ren, who had been turning to go back into the fight, looks at him for a second. Nods in acknowledgement. Then joins his Knights in exterminating the remaining Praetorians. Which doesn’t take long.

 


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - health problems (a relative's. Not serious, luckily, but bothersome). 
> 
> So - wrapping up, now. This is, I think, the last-but-one chapter. Hopefully, I'll be posting the final chapter tomorrow or so. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for your comments and kudos!

They are sitting in Ren’s private quarters, with Ren and Hux having a much-needed stiff drink, while they watch the swarm of cleanup ships scurrying to and fro in the darkness outside, picking up the debris.

“So: officially, Snoke and his entourage have very sadly been killed in a freak accident when his private ship exploded while he was on his way to Crait to interrogate Rebel prisoners,” says Hux, cradling his brandy. “They will find his remains, to prove that he’s not alive, but sufficiently mangled so as to make it impossible to find evidence of any… untoward strangling.” And smiles at Rey.

Ren frowns. “Will they _really_ buy the story, though?”

“Who’s ‘they’?” asks Hux. “The First Order? Snoke wasn’t exactly Mr Popularity lately. The Resistance thought they were the only ones opposing them, but there have been dissident groups within the First Order, insider saboteurs, for years. I had been aware of them, and allowed them to continue to exist, and they know it. Likewise with the officers’ guilds and the trade unions.”

“The trade unions?” sputters Ren. “There are _trade unions_ in the First Order?”

“Clandestine, but of course there are.” Hux smiles his foxy smile. “That’s what happens when you don’t bother with politics, Ren. You never know what’s really going on behind the scenes.”

“So what happens now?” asks Rey.

“Well – the troops and most of the officers and the bureucrats will be happy to accept the story of Snoke’s death – there may be some pockets of resistance from the more hardcore wings of the First Order, but we’ll deal with those quickly enough. And everyone is just sick of this war. They’ll be glad it’s over.” He sees Rey’s anguished expression. “We need to reach a peace with the Rebellion. Even though the high command is trapped on Crait, the Resistance is spread throughout the galaxy. I’m not willing to run myself ragged trying to exterminate it when I could be doing much more productive things.”

“And of course it will be _you_ leading all this,” says Ren, somewhat snarkily, emptying his glass.

“Of course,” replies Hux. “I am the leader of the First Order, after all. I didn’t become involved in this for nothing.” He looks at Ren’s and Rey’s critical faces. “I’m a pragmatist. I joined the First Order because the Republic led to appalling chaos and destruction, and I thought it could bring order to the galaxy. And I served Snoke because I knew I would be able to advance through the ranks, even though the man… creature… whatever it was, was a psychopathic tyrant. I knew eventually I would be in a position to succeed him and end the war, reaching a truce with the Rebellion – because, whatever our respective principles may be, we _need to reach an agreement for peace._ And I know I’m the best person to do that. It’s not a matter of narcissism or self-aggrandisement. It's just that I'm the best person for the job.”

Rey looks at Hux, his easy self-confidence, and realises he’s telling the truth. He’s not a fanatic, he’s not a believer. This is a man who is not driven by a thirst for glory, but simply by the desire to _do things properly_  – and is happy to beat everyone else along the way, just to prove that he’s the best possible person to do so.

Hux polishes off the bottom of his glass too. “Where both the Empire and the Rebellion went wrong was in thinking that they could completely exterminate the other. This is a civil war on a galactic scale, and in civil wars you can’t just get rid of the other side short of humungous genocide on a systematic scale – which doesn’t really work at any level – logistically, in economic terms, and so on.

“Well, yes, and there’s the small point that killing people is usually _wrong_ ,” mutters Rey.

Hux smiles. “Usually, yes. I’m not a monster, Rey. I don’t enjoy death and destruction, and, believe me, I have tried to avoid them whenever possible. That’s why I think that we really need to sit and talk with the Resistance and come to an agreement. And I hope you will be able to help me with that.”

“Me?”

“Both of you. Ren is the son of General Organa, the nephew of Luke Skywalker, after all. And you have good friends in high positions in the Resistance, who trust you and will listen to you. And who can be told – in the strictest confidentiality, of course – about what really happened to Snoke. If they see that you are working with us and support this truce, things will be so much easier.”

“So that’s how history is going to be told?” cries Rey, with a certain bitterness. “Snoke died in an accident. Ren makes peace with the Resistance as the nephew of Skywalker, who continues to be revered as a hero. And the First Order wins the war.”

“ _Nobody_ wins this war, Rey,” says Hux, sharply. “There is no way in which it can be won other than by stopping it. As I said, I’m a pragmatist. I don’t care what I have to say to get things done. And yes, if I have to turn Snoke into a martyred saint for the First Order and allow Skywalker to continue to be a hero of the Resistance, I will be happy to.”

“The first casualty of war is truth,” muses Ren.

“Indeed. But _you_ know what happened, I know what happened, and the people who matter will know too. Does it really matter so much what the official story is?” He gets up. “And now, if you will excuse me, I need to go. There’s lots to do, what with Snoke’s upcoming funeral and the start of the peace talks. As I said, I hope you will be able to help with that.” He looks at Ren steadily. “And I wanted to make it clear that I will be happy to work with you, Commander. I may have – _disagreed_ with your methods and priorities sometimes, but I do respect you.” He smiles foxily. “And having a Force user in my government is always going to be a great asset, of course.” He nods at Rey. “And of course, the same goes for you.” And he leaves.

They remain in silence for a few instants. Then Rey looks up at him. “So – what are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“About this. Hux. The First Order. Everything.” She looks at the floor. “I had expected that you would want to become Emperor.”

He sighs. “I had thought so, too. But – my life has been preordained since I was born. My mother expected that I would become a senator at least, and then, when it was clear that I was a strong Force user, that I would become the most powerful Jedi ever. The successor of Vader and Skywalker. Then I broke away from that, only to become Snoke’s apprentice and heir presumptive. I've realised I’m tired of being someone else’s heir, of always fulfilling someone else’s idea of what my life should look like.”

“And what do _you_ think your life should look like?” she asks.

“I have no idea. I have never given it any thought, because I just couldn’t. I think – I think, right now, I’m just curious about the possibilities.” He looks up at her: “So what about you, Rey? Do you want to become a member of Hux’s government?”

“I have no idea, either. I – feel I _should_ help with the peace. It’s true that the Resistance will listen to me. And I do want to help. But then – I lived in a desert for so long, I have seen so little of the universe. I know your life was awful in many ways, but I do envy you what you have seen, the experiences you have had. I know so little. I think I would like to travel for a while. _See_ things.”

He is looking at her steadily, very seriously, now. “Rey, you do know – you are completely free. To do anything.” He forces himself to say it. “To go. I have behaved appallingly towards you. I would understand if you did.” _Even though it will kill me._

She stares at him for a second, then blinks. “You really _are_ an idiot, aren’t you?”

“What…?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said inside that room? That I loved you? That there was nowhere else I would rather be than by your side? _For fuck’s sake, Ren_ ,” she snorts in exasperation, blowing strands of hair off her face. “Of course I want to do things, plenty of them, but I want to do them _with you!!!_ At least, some of them! I've no intention of buggering off on my own! I thought that would be clear enough by now!”

He is smiling like a loon. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” She rolls her eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”

He thinks for a second. “I know the context in which the matter came up was not exactly the healthiest, but – you know – what Snoke wanted us to…”

“Oh. Children, you mean?” He assents mutely. She lets out a long breath. “I really don't know, to be honest. I… imagine I would like to, yes. At one point. _With you_ ,” she clarifies, just in case. “But not right now. I’d like to wait a bit. And do other things before.”

“Hm. I thought as much.” He stands up and approaches her where she is sitting on the sofa. “You haven’t had your contraceptive implant put in place again, have you? No, didn’t think so.” He leans forward and picks her up, easily. “Lucky I keep condoms by my bed, then”, he smiles, and she laughs as he carries her to the bedroom.

 

 


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. Not the last chapter, because I think the final scenes belong in a different chapter. And yes, we are getting back to the smut.

They are lying in bed, after, his arm around her.

“I’ve been thinking about the Force and this whole – sexual thing,” he says. “I think very early Force schools must have made use of it. The early Jedi, when they emerged, also knew about the connection between sexuality and the Force, its power, and it terrified them. That’s why they insisted on systematically removing any attachments, any intense feelings that might tap into that source of power.”

“It’s sad, really,” murmurs Rey against his shoulder. “Denying yourself that. In a way, what happened to Skywalker was a result of it. A distortion of his nature. A horrible amputation.”

“Yes. I’ve also thought that… perhaps we could do something about it. I’m not sure what, or how. But – you have such a Force potential, Rey. It seems a pity to waste it.”

She smiles at him, impishly. “Who said I intended to waste it? I assumed my training would continue. After all, I’m still under your tutelage – _Master._ ”

He swallows, his mouth gone suddenly dry. “Yes. Oh, and I really should remove that Entanglement from your mind, by the way. We don’t want any Force user to accidentally stray into your mind and get caught in there. And I’ll remove the trigger, while I’m at it.”

She goes silent for a moment, then says: “No. Don’t.” He looks down at her, curiously. “Don’t remove the trigger. I – sort of like it. The asymmetry. The fact that you have that power over me, that you can penetrate me so deeply at will. That you can potentially _mould_ my thoughts.” She blushes, slightly. “It turns me on, knowing that.”

He stares at her for a second, then laughs out loud. “You are a _pervert_ , scavenger.”

“You only noticed that just now?”

But he’s already crushing his mouth against hers, clearly turned on again, so deeply that she gasps for breath as she emerges from the kiss. “Say it,” she pants.

“What?”

“Say it.”

“Topping from the bottom now, are we?” But he smiles, and whispers it. “ _Meditation time, Rey._ ” And he feels something stir deep in him as he watches her succumb to the trigger, how her features soften as she gives in, as she surrenders to him, so helpless, so exposed, so completely vulnerable to him. “ _Good girl_ ”, and she sighs against him, already wet again, opening like a flower.

He trails one hand down her torso, his fingers caressing as they move down her bared throat, her sternum, the softness of her belly, reaching her cunt. His other hand closes around her neck, and he feels the familiar surge of power. “Yes – I think I’ll train you, apprentice.” _Oh yes – I’m going to condition you through pleasure like crazy._

“I know you need this,” he hisses, sliding his fingers along her wet folds, holding her tight, down, feeling the pulse of the artery in her neck under his other hand. “My control. Being mastered. Being _owned._ Don’t worry, little scavenger – you’ll get it.” And he ramps up his stroking below as he tightens his grip around her throat, cutting off her breath, always keeping a eye on her face, careful not to overdo it, careful to keep her just on the safe side.

She struggles at first, a reflex, the instinct kicking in, but he strokes her hair and releases, a little: “Shhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhh. Just trust me, Rey. Just let go. You know I’m  in control. You know I won’t allow anything bad to happen to you. Just trust me.”

She widens her eyes slightly, then wills herself to relax into his grip, and he rewards her with a deeper stroke. “That’s it. That’s it. Good girl.”

And he sets up a rhythm, tigthening and loosening, constraining her breath and releasing it, as he strokes her, so that he brings her repeatedly to the verge, over and over and over, as he cuts the airflow and pins her down with his gaze, holding – literally – her life in his hands.

When he senses that she can’t take any more, he brings his mouth next to her ear, and whispers “What are you?” as he drives her closer and closer to the edge, unrelenting, his hand tightening, his breath against her.

“ _Yours,_ ” she cries, and bursts like a dam, clenching frantically around his fingers, as he grants her her release.

***

She is out of the trance, but still postorgasmically fuzzy, when she feels his hardness against her. Again. His intentions transparent – he’s already put another condom on.

“Hm?” she mumbles. “What’s this, Let’s See How Many Times We Can Make Rey Cum Day?”

He chuckles. “I wish that was every day. Actually, I think we should have several of those, as official holidays.”

“Every year?”

“Every week.”

She starts to laugh, when he suddenly rolls her over and pins her down, holding her down by the wrists. He brings his knee up between her legs. “Still wet as a fountain. Good.” And slides into her in one smooth thrust.

“I can’t…” she opens her mouth to protest, but he starts to rock gently, to and fro, and she realises that, amazingly, she absolutely can, again. And indeed, she needs to. She rises to meet him, hungry again, and he laughs lightly.

“Still horny, are you? Such a slut, you are.” He frowns in concentration, and she can see how he goes deeper into his darker thoughts as his lust mounts and his inhibitions fall away. He brings his right hand to her throat again, but this time not to choke her, but rather purely as a sign of control, of mastery over her. Of ownership. “I think I’ll install other triggers – you won’t be aware of them until you suddenly feel the need to start masturbating in public. Would you like that? Yes, I think I’ll do that – you’ll be sitting all prim and proper in the peace negotiations, and suddenly you’ll feel the urge to start touching yourself, you’ll be desperate, unable to contain yourself, and everyone will _know,_ they will smell your cunt from across the table, they will see how you pant and moan like the _filthy slut_ you are.” He’s pumping into her now, hard. His voice ragged with lust. “And you’ll _beg_ me to release you. You’ll beg me to fuck you right in front of all your Rebel friends. But I won’t.”

He brings down the weight of her body on her, so that she’s caught as if under a cage, locked to him below. He brings his mouth to her ear, whispering darkly as he grinds and grinds into her, as she rises to meet his thrusts in a rising wave of heat: “I’ll _order_ you to suck all their cocks before you can cum. Would you like that? Hmm? I bet that will make the negotiations _so much easier._ So Hux and I can reach terms while you suck Poe’s cock, and then Finn’s, or maybe _both_. Oh, and of course the Wookie's cock too. Stuffed to the gills. Can you imagine their faces? What will they think of you then, when they are fucking your face while I fuck you from behind? When I make it clear to everyone what you are – _my_ cunt. _My_ slut. _My_ whore.”

And he cums into her with a roar, pulling her into the darkness with him.

***

He comes round to see her watching him with a little smile.

“What?” he says, somewhat defensively, remembering all he has just spouted.

She touches his chest, lightly. “I think we need to talk a bit more about these… fantasies of yours, Master.”

 

 


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here it is. Thank you to absolutely everyone who has been reading along, and to everyone for your wonderful comments and kudos - it's what has kept me going. 
> 
> I had no idea where I was going when I started this, and it's turned out to be quite a wild ride, and I have learnt more than I had ever expected when I started to write a quick fantasy. Thanks to everyone who's come along in what must have been pretty weird and disconcerting at times. 
> 
> Also - there might be a sequel (or sequels) to this. I still don't know how Hux managed to do it.

_Well, this is awkward._

They are sitting in the senior command’s meeting room. Hux and her on one side, Poe and Finn and Rose on the other. Even though she begged Hux to use any other configuration – seats in a U shape? Sitting on sofas? Sitting at the ship bar? Anything but this – he has insisted. “I understand they are your friends, Rey. But we need to make it our position clear.” And apparently, the official position is that she now is a member of the First Order. Well, at least he hasn’t made her wear one of those uniforms.

Which doesn’t prevent her friends from wearing a permanent scowl that talking to them before the meeting has apparently done nothing to remove. “It’s… it’s as if you’ve been brainwashed by Kylo Ren,” sputtered Finn.

_You have no idea._

“If this is an attempt at _whitewashing_ what the First Order has been doing until now – “ Poe is saying, in his usual defiant manner, looking sideways at Rey. “We won’t be putting up with any publicity stunts!”

“ _We have killed Snoke_ , Poe,” she mutters between gritted teeth, for the umpteenth time. “How is that a publicity stunt?”

“Internal quarrels among the First Order. Why should we believe that Snoke’s successor will be better than him?”

Hux raises a conciliatory hand. “You do have a point. But I would like to point out that the First Order had trapped the Resistance’s senior command on Crait. Blowing you up to the outer rim of the galaxy would have been a matter of minutes. Yet here you are, alive and well and sitting at a negotiation table with us. If that isn’t proof of our goodwill, I don’t know what is.”

Poe relents, slightly, but still glares at them in mistrust. He opens his mouth to say something when the door opens and Ren walks into the room, and immediately all three Resistance leaders jerk back in their seats, hackles raised like spooked cats.

 _And he isn’t even wearing his helmet,_ muses Rey.

“So this is how your idea of negotiation?” snarls Finn. “Bringing in your head torturer?”

“There will be no torture here,” intervenes Hux. “We really, honestly, want to negotiate a truce. This war just can’t go on. Commander Ren is here purely in his capacity as a member of my future government.”

“A government led by the man who destroyed the Hosnian system, with the man who killed Luke Skywalker,” mutters Poe. “Yeah, that will be some government.”

“Make no mistakes, Poe,” says Rey, tense. “Ren didn’t kill Skywalker. _I_ did.” They all look at her in astonishment. “And no, I wasn’t brainwashed. I had good reasons to do it.” She glances up at Ren. “Which I will be happy to explain to you – in private.”

The three Resistance leaders’ frowns do not disappear, but do become somewhat mitigated by their obvious confusion. Hux leans forward. “It was Commander Ren who took the initiative to kill Snoke. At an extremely high risk to his life. Even though he was Snoke’s heir-designate, and could be claiming the throne for himself right now. And he did this because, like me, he could no longer bear Snoke’s tyrannical regime.” He turns to look at Rey. “But what ultimately pushed him was that he felt compelled to protect her.”

Poe and Finn, completely thrown off, now very visibly have no idea what to think. But Rose leans back in her seat, takes a look at Rey, then a look at Ren. And smiles.

***

“ _I’m not sharing you._ End of story. _”_

They are sitting after dinner, days later, when the more grueling part of the negotiations is over and her friends are starting to talk to her like a normal human being again. They had been feeling more relaxed for the first time in weeks when _the topic_ came up.

“Nobody’s talking about sharing, Ren. I’m talking about fantasies. _Your_ fantasies, to be precise.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he mutters.

She sidles up to him. “Why not? It comes up constantly, when we fuck. And it makes you hard as a rock, every single time. It’s obvious that there’s something very powerful going on there for you.” He says nothing. She sighs. “Ren. You have mindfucked me thoroughly. You have gone through my own fantasies of submission and humiliation and – even – degradation over and over and over, in _minute_ detail, because you _cheated_ with hypnosis.” She hurries on before he can protest or apologise, or both. “ _And I’m glad you did._ I wouldn’t have ever faced that on my own, and I’m glad I have you to explore that aspect of myself with.” She moves up closer to him, slides her arm around his waist where he sits, slouching and sullen. “It’s not fair. But it’s not fair _to you._ You are resisting going into this side of yourself out of fear. And there is nothing to fear. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” She buries her head in the hollow of his neck and shoulder, nuzzling him. “And I’m never going to be anything other than _yours._ ”

He is silent, still, for a while. Then, hesitantly: “It’s true that I… think about things. Being done to you. In front of me.”

Gently. “Do you know what turns you on about that?”

“I’m not sure. I think – it’s not so much the fact that someone else is… doing those this to you, per se. Rather, it’s the fact that I’m still in control. That I’m the one supervising. That I can even use others to use you.”

“So the others are – instrumental. Just means that you use.”

“Something like that. Yes.”

She thinks for a moment. “So, essentially, you are having your cake and eating it.”

“How do you mean?”

“Yes. In your fantasy, you get to lose control – because, after all someone else is using me, you are, in a way, lending me out. But you also retain control, because you are the one deciding, supervising, giving the orders. And you are also using others to suit your own purposes. And furthermore I’m both a complete slut – because I get handed around – and a complete object – because I have absolutely no power of decision. I’m your property to such an extent that you even allow others to play with me if you feel like it. Both tight and loose, if you will.” She looks at him. “And there’s also something you should realise.”

“Yes?” he manages to say.

“You’re getting a hardon just from talking about this.”

Which is true. He swallows, dry-mouthed, unable to reply.

She slides her hand slowly down his torso. “And also – “ Reaches his hardness. “You forget you’re not the only one who can get into other people’s minds. You’re not impenetrable, _Master._ I’ve caught glimpses.” Caressing, whispering. “I’ve seen what crosses your mind. Repeatedly.”

“I…”

“I had wondered why you chose specifically _that_ way to humiliate me, that time.” He’s so hard now, it’s painful. She looks up at him, her clear gaze looking straight into him, into the darkess of him.

“And he _has_ done you a service.”

 

***

Hux is getting ready for the evening in his private quarters, getting out of his starched uniform and into a loose tunic and slacks, what he would never allow his public persona to be seen in. It’s been a satisfactory few days, with the negotiations progressing in the right direction – towards peace, and, incidentally, towards his acceptance as the leader of whatever form the future government of the galaxy will take. Supreme Leader and Emperor are out of the question – too many associations with the former regime, and, besides, he finds them bombastic and over the top. He personally would prefer something duller, the kind of non-descript title that conceals the real power behind it. He is leaning towards _Chairman._

There is a ring at the door.

He opens it, expecting  a stormtrooper delivering some tiresome message, but finds himself facing Rey. Who is dressed in some sort of sleeveless cowled black shift, reminiscent of the sort of thing he imagines Sith apprentices must have worn, back in the day. She looks at him, and says, in an oddly formal way: “General Hux. My Master requests your presence in his quarters.”

He looks at the time. “At this time? If it’s something to do with the negotiations, perhaps we could discuss it tomorrow…”

She smiles, slightly. “I believe it is a matter of a more personal nature, General. My Master absolutely insists.”

He sighs in resignation. “Very well. Let’s see what _your Master_ wants, then.” He throws on a nightrobe and follows Rey, who leads him down a longer, quieter route down the ship’s corridors to Ren’s quarters.

Ren is waiting for them, also in informal clothes. He stands up when Hux comes in. “General. Thanks for coming.” He gestures towards one of the sofas, and they sit across from each other. “Would you like something to drink? Brandy, is it?”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

Ren nods towards Rey, who quietly moves to a sideboard to prepare their drinks. Hux follows her with his gaze for a second, briefly wondering how someone who can be both so authoritative and commanding in public – as has been made very clear in the recent negotiations – can then become so – _auxiliary_ in private.

When he looks back, Ren is observing him in what looks like a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Then Rey hands them their drinks, and moves to stand at the end of the other sofa, to Ren’s right.

“I asked you to come tonight because I wanted to thank you specially, General,” says Ren.

Hux takes a sip. He doesn’t ask what for. He smiles: “Thank you, Commander. That’s – very thoughtful of you. But there really was no need.”

“On the contrary. Not only did you save my – and Rey’s – life when we faced Snoke. You have also defended me in the negotiations with the Rebels. And, most importantly, you have been consistently fair, and kind, towards my apprentice. Even – particularly – when I failed to be. When I should have been.” He glances up at Rey. “For that, I am in your debt.”

Hux would normally smirk at something like this, but now he has the – for him, rare – feeling of being rather out of his depth. He takes another drink. Noticing that Ren has not yet touched his own glass. And they are both looking at him in a way that, while not exactly unfriendly, he is starting to find rather unsettling.

“So I would like to thank you,” goes on Ren. “As a friend. With what is most precious to me.” He looks up at Rey. “Apprentice. _Please_ him.”

“Yes, Master.”

He looks up in alarm, to see Rey advancing towards him, slowly, with a small, crooked smile. The meek, subservient girl that served them drink suddenly moving in a sensuous, seductive way that he has never seen in her before. _Feline,_ almost.

She comes up to him, then kneels in front of his legs, places her hands on his own knees, and gently parts them. And he can just stare down at her, paralysed, caught between horror and arousal.

She caresses his crotch, then gently rises a bit, so as to reach his torso, and brings her head next to his, smelling him, feeling the roughness of his unshaved cheek. Turns to look at Ren, who is glowering at them. With the biggest erection that she has ever seen in him tenting his slacks.

_NO KISSING. NO TOUCHING._

She smiles out of Hux’s sight, then draws back her head and moves down again, sliding her hands down his chest, along his hips, and back to his thighs. Then moves her hands up to her collar and unfastens her robe open, displaying the lacy black underwear she is wearing.

Hux’s erection is straining through his slacks. One part of his mind is certain, _certain,_ that he’s going to die any minute now, that this has to be some perverse joke, or trap, on Ren’s part to get rid of him, to kill him in a jealous fury, inflicting horrendous pain. Another part of his mind doesn’t give a shit about that, and just wants this to _continue, god, yes._ And finally, the more rational part of his mind, subdued though it is at this point, realises that this is different and unprecedented, that there’s something going on here that he doesn’t _quite_ grasp, and if Ren wanted to kill him he wouldn’t need to resort to weird sex games to do it, so he might just as well enjoy the ride.

And now she is unfastening the fly of his slacks, so that his erection springs out to the light, furious and red.

And, yes, she brings her mouth down around it. And proceeds to give him a blowjob.

He is fully expecting to wake up any minute now, the situation is so dream-like, so surreal. And this slip of a girl, whom he had dismissed as some non-entity from a backwater planet, is sucking his cock with a degree of expertise that he has never come across before. Her tongue swirls up and down and around, along his shaft, down to his balls, her tongue licking, her lips sucking and kissing, her teeth nibbling slightly, her fingers expertly caressing his thighs as she plunders, nose deep in his flame-coloured pubic hair, reaching all the way down to his perineum, and, yes, the rim of his anus.

Hux is so lost in his own pleasure, eyes half closed, his voice groaning and moaning quite beyond his control, that he doesn’t realise that Ren has stood up and approached Rey from behind. Gently, he pulls her robe back from her shoulders, releasing it as she lifts one hand, then the other, then throwing it aside, so that she is left in her underwear, sucking Hux’s cock on all fours under his gaze.

He, too, kneels, slightly parts Rey’s cheeks, and strokes between with his hand. Drenched.

Ren grips her hips with both hands, and thrusts in, into her warm wetness, so that she drops Hux’s cock for a second to moan. Then looks back over her shoulder to look at him – so sultry, so purely _sexual_ , that he almost cums on the spot.

But he composes himself, and nods for her to continue, so she goes back to Hux’s cock, and he plunges again into her, deeper and deeper, setting up a rhythm – his thrusts moving through her to  Hux, so that she’s caught between both men, connecting them, like a conduit.

He pumps and pumps, exulting in his control, in his lack of control, in his dominance, in his letting go, burying himself in her, driving her, thrusting into her to reach all the way to the other man, giving her to him, showing him who’s Master, thanking him, using him, using her, loving her desperately – then, when he senses that they are all coming close to the edge, he leans forwards, grasps Rey by the shoulders, and whispers fiercely in her ear: “ _You’re my thing, apprentice. You know I can take whatever I want.”_

She turns her face up to meet his, hot and flushed, verging now, so close, so close, and gasps: “ _Master._ ” Mind and body completely open. Completely vulnerable. Completely accesible. Completely _his._

He looks at her, then up at the red-headed man who is groaning, eyes closed, his hands clenched helplessly on the sofa cushion, lost in pleasure at the hands of this woman because _he_ has willed it. The man, he realises, that he’s starting to become fond of, not least because he is certain that Hux is a safe option for _this._

He grips Rey’s hips again, hard, and says, loud enough for both of them to hear: “Cum _now._ ”

And he feels the Force rise in him, through Rey, all the way to Hux and back, bursting like a nova, and they cum and cum, the men filling her, Rey spasming around them, until they collapse into the dark.

***

“Thank you for the, er, evening,” says Hux, shaking Ren’s hand as he leaves. After having taken a quick shower at Rey’s suggestion, of course – he’s not the kind of man who can put up with stickiness and bodily fluids for long.

“Thank you for coming,” says Ren, then realises what he’s said, and both men look aside, slightly flustered and awkward. Rey smiles and stands on her tiptoes to kiss Hux on his cheek.

“Thank you, General. For everything.”

And, in what seems to be the theme for the night, Hux is again lost for words. So he just smiles weakly, blushing slightly, nods, and leaves.

She turns with a sigh to look at Ren. Slightly concerned. “So how…?”

But he’s clutching her suddenly, holding her tight, crushing his mouth against her fiercely. When she comes up for air, she hears her growl, fiercely: “ _Mine.”_

She looks at him, still wary. _Is he regretting it?_

“So what did you think, Master?”

He smiles wryly, still holding her. “That was… interesting. Not something I would want to do every day, or even on a monthly basis. But definitely interesting. And liberating. Thank you for making me go there.” He looks at her in his intent way. “Are you all right?”

“Me? Oh. Yes. I was worried about you. I’m all right. I enjoyed it.” And seeing the reflex suspicion in his eyes, adds: “I enjoyed being used by you like that. And being able to arouse you like _that_. God, I had never seen you so hard.”

He smiles. “Yes. And I thought I was past it. As for Hux…”

“I like Hux. I’m fond of him. But he’s instrumental. Just a way of pleasing you. You know I would _never_ do this without you, don’t you?”

He nods. “I know, Rey. And I have to say I’m also getting fond of Hux.” He smiles. “Although I loved rubbing his face in it.”

“So… did it live up to your fantasies, Master?”

“It’s… different. There’s a difference between fantasy and reality, fortunately. Ultimately, what counts is _this._ ” He grins. “And I have to give it to you – that was amazing. But I think we should stop at this point. I’m not having you milked in front of my senior officers.”

“Glad to hear that, Master.” She slides his arm around him and they walk to the bathroom for a quick shower before bed. They have a long day ahead, tomorrow.

 

 


	38. Postcript

Just a note to let people know that finally I will be writing about what happens to Hux next here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14600883

Thanks to everyone for reading!


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